"I ask you, sister, tell me true:
What is this place below?
It seems to set my heart askew,
And yet I know it not."
"Recall, my sister, long ago,
The wretched night we fought?
I keep these ruins here to show
Another way I failed."
"Again with this? And here I thought
That ship had finally sailed.
The fault was mine; it never ought
To stain your pearly wings."
"A pearl? Behold it, chipped and paled!
Attend the songs it sings
As bards in olden days regaled
Their masters' filthy ears!"
"Forget it, Sunny. Scary things
Have danced with me for years.
You'll need to shout with louder stings
To make me break a sweat."
"This sand, so drenched with blood and tears,
Declares my endless debt:
Accounts forever in arrears
I never can repay."
"Okay, I'm sensing you're upset.
I see a lovely bay,
But if there's ghosts I haven't met,
An introduction, please."
"A hundred stalwart ponies, they
Arrived upon the breeze
With friendship, but they lost the way.
I didn't intervene."
***
"Forgive me, sister, if I sneeze.
Or do you truly mean
You sought to take their destinies,
Controlling all they did?"
"I watched them play each sordid scene
And never sought to rid
Their hearts of darkness, didn't preen
Their feathers, and they died."
"Again, I really hope you kid
Because you just implied
You wished you'd kept a tighter lid
And stopped them living free."
"I could've shown them, could've tried
A million ways or three!
But no. With callous sloth, I sighed
And left them to their doom."
"Perhaps you watched attentively
The pattern on your loom
That threatened mass destruction: me!
Eternal night and all?"
"Excuses make a sorry broom.
I simply dropped the ball.
In pride, I let myself assume
My will was strong enough."
"I think you're trying to appall
With all this tyrant stuff.
You have to know you can't install
Your brain in others' heads!"
"A teacher must be stern and tough,
Instructing though she dreads
The distance this creates, the rough
Allegiance based in fear."
***
"Our happy little quadrupeds
Have always loved you, dear.
So tell me straight. These shattered sheds:
Your fault exactly how?"
"A pony, friendless and austere
Whose mind would disallow
Another's joy, went to her bier
By drowning all alone."
"Uh-huh. And this provoked a row,
Disturbed the cornerstone,
And sank the town? Come off it, now:
A simple accident—"
"They don't exist! I've always known
The word 'coincident'
Is used in ways too overblown!
If only I'd prepared!"
"Prepared? For what? You truly meant—?
Oh, Sunny, now I'm scared.
Because you're trying to repent
Of things that aren't a crime!"
"And should I ask you how you dared
Rebuke me when your mime,
Your Tantabus, lies deeply laired
Within your darkest dreams?"
"You know? You can't! It's not—! But I'm—!
It isn't what it seems!
I face my constant inner grime
So I won't fall again!"
"We think alike, our self-esteems
One trackless, stinking fen.
Our subjects marvel at our gleams,
But we see only lies."
***
"I start to understand it, then.
They haunt you with their cries,
The ones who died, succumbing when
I forced you to react."
"Suspicious growling, stifled sighs:
It's love and trust they lacked.
Instead of neighbors, seeing spies,
They panicked when she drowned."
"Another mark on me, in fact,
For if you hadn't found
Distraction—keeping me intact—
You could've focused more."
"I love you, Starry. Spread around
The blame? Why, that's the core
Of what I'd call some truly sound
Relationship advice!"
"And yet I slam my mental door
On matters less than nice
To let them fester, rank and sore.
As guidance? Not the best."
"I choose displays. They're neat, concise,
And stab me in the chest:
My failures, plain and packed in ice,
Museum quality."
"We're quite the pair, alive with zest
To breathe such misery
That we can never truly rest.
And yes, I love you, too."
"Aloft, then, sister! Out to sea!
We've so much more to view!
Defeats! Mistakes! A panoply
Of things you need to know!"