Elegy

I walked in the door and kissed my Petra

A warm good morning with an extra spice

The air warm and fragrant with her sleep

Smiles and love the hallmark of the day

Whilst you were cold and alone

A scant few miles away

And I laughed, a mad villain, psychopathic murderer, oblivious and carefree.

This is the day we met, my love:

A mutual disinterest marked the occasion

An indifferent handshake-and-how-do-you-do affair

You wanted to whisk your wisp away

And my mind was on my Siren

As it always was those days

And we parted for the first time

And there was no pain.

No pain.

Her echoes of you nearly drowned out the Siren's

The bolt charged in her eyes and I knew it was your heart

The future hung in the air between

And I thought some lucky man waited for her,

This Othello flip of you,

And I smiled for him.

I saw the two of you embrace in the past,

And I saw it again and smiled,

And then came the word

That word

I felt that word though it was pointed at her,

I stole her pain and held it tight,

I became it, became pain, became the word.

I found what I found

And I knew I had missed the chance

And there was no return

There was no absolution

My cruelty would go unanswered forever.

I was a broken vessel, useless and scattered

Until you gathered me and began.

I heard your song that would echo

Reverberating in my soul forever.

I became yours more than I had ever been hers.

You shelved me so gently I felt grateful for your rejection,

And in my obsolescence I became more yours.

Could I have but sat that shelf forever,

My migrant soul would not have crushed you.

Your Gemelle was there, my weapon,

As she became my Desdemona and I Iago,

Bereft of malice, my betrayal was twice as bitter.

You warned me but she was in my ears,

Consuming me with the heat of her light,

Her reflection of your beautiful darkness.

She was intoxicated but I was the drunk,

And I took the keys from her and steered.

How could I?

How could I not?

I killed you because I wanted to die.

I never could have wanted you dead.

My Siren and your wisp before us,

We were the conquering heroes.

Pan and Dionysus gave each other life,

Byron and Shelley reborn in a tempest of flesh,

More debauched by our long absence,

Trimphant and glorious, we were gods!

Our temple a sweaty bed draped with naked acolytes,

The Churches merged into one.

This is the day you spoke, my love:

Like us, before us, they made us,

But we decided to decide our forms.

The stuff was there, immutable, inescapable,

But you showed me how to pour the mold.

You handed me the key to becoming

The man who would know how to refrain.

If only I had known how to use it,

How dire the urgency

To be who I could be.

But I was still who I was for far too long.

Too long for you.

Those words, that face.

I killed three that day.

I killed my friend

And I killed my lover

And I killed the one who killed them

And sometimes I still wonder who was whom.

Their blood still runs.