Who?

Come, come; stand on her doorstep with your flowers and your champagne, take her to the restaurant you think will impress her most, be sure to play the music she says she loves, make clear the way for her and tell her she is beautiful.

Come, come; look into her eyes and be dazzled by them, tell her you have never met anyone like her before, encapsulate her feelings in words and offer them to her life gifts, see the crystal mirror of her face, never suspecting the multi-faceted immeasurable diamond that lies behind it, the jewel that only one has seen.

Come, come; arrange the right compliments in the right way, be gentlemanly, but be sensual and she may let you into her house, may let you into her bed, may let you into herself - you will feel that you are special - but do you even know quite who she is?

No. For all the fine things your offer, you cannot even begin to imagine.

No one will blame you; she does not even know herself any more.

Two Hearts

Once there was made a crystal sculpture, two hearts entwined in an intricate pattern of luminescence and love; it was so beautiful and perfect that no-one could look at it and doubt that it was right.

One day, the sculpture smashed. No-one knew why or how. An infinite number of infinitesimal crystal pieces lay shattered where the beautiful thing had been.

I may spend the rest of my days, on my knees in the darkness, trying to find all those pretty crystal shards, collect them up, make them whole, pondering all the while upon the futility of my task.

Barely An Echo

Athene's voice is now barely as echo in my head, as I trudge the streets, without diamonds, without new and shiny gold, without anything at all.

It was never what I wanted.

I knew it when I made the exchange.

Perhaps it is my destiny to knowlingly make the wrong choices to punish myself for some crime I cannot recollect committing.

Not You

Because he is not you, I cannot look into his eyes and speak my truth without sounding my voice, cannot trace each line upon his hand like a well worn map, cannot lie beside him without the pretence that I am someone else.

Because he is not you, he cannot make me cry, cannot leave me devastated, desperate and wanting, cannot disappoint me.

Because he is not you, he cannot make me smile, cannot, with a look, provoke spontaneous bursts of laughter, cannot tell me I am strong; that I will make it through.

Because he is not you, he cannot let me down.

But he cannot raise me up.

Because he is not you, he cannot give me nightmares.

But he cannot make me dream.

Because he is not you, the words choke in my throat when I try to speak of all the things that we have shared together, lived together, loved together.

But because he is not you, he cannot break my heart.

A Better Place

He never moved into the house
The light, bright window out of which he gazed
On Sunday last
Never walked his dogs across
The open fields that lay endlessly out before it
No,
His time was almost past

And now is gone.

He never cooked upon the range
Which confounded yet pleased and impressed him so
He never moved his sofa in
Though, with gently moving arms had illustrated
The very place where it would go

Where is it now?

He never turned his new set of keys in solid locks as he
Should have, just today
And the pale blue eyes which, lost in reverie had looked
Instead, part on Valhala and part in pleading stare with
Death
Were gazed

Where is he now?

He said it was a new start for him, a new time
He said that he would stay this quiet place, for more than just a while
He had nodded with vague certainty
He had said so with a smile

And you ask, why should I care?
Why the blood money I can't keep?
Why I should stoop with such sorrow?
Why should I stumble, why should I weep?

How, then, can I make you understand
That he was a good and gentleman
That the good die young
And that
I knew it
When, with polite grace
He shook me by the hand.