At a glance, from across the room, we met eyes. The dancers stopped, and the midnight bell tolled, the lights dimmed, and only we glowed in the obsidian night. He and I, I and He.Behind our masks we dreamt dreams of grandeur, and I reached out to him as he reached out to me. Together we stand, together we come. Our fingers touch—our bodies close in—our bodies touch—his lips come for mine—they meet. We kiss. At a glance, our sparkling eyes in our sparkling light, we pull away, we turn, we leave—the midnight bell no longer tolls. Our dance is over, the lights burn again, the dancers close in. At a glance through the forest of people, we no longer see each other, behind our masks, at a glance.

His life to live, his life to die. His silver eyes, his silver hair. Old and young, frail and strong. I find his hand on the silk covers, but his eyes do not find mine. I grip him, but he does not grip me, for all that it is worth, only I feel him—he does not feel me. He is cold, and I provide no warmth. I am of no use, for it was not my life to live, it was not my place to die for him. I was lost, he had not been found. As the thunder rolls, I will never forget: it is his life to live, his place to die.

The room is cold, the windows are foggy, and the fire is dim. It crackles and snaps, the walls and floor are covered in shadows, only a small ring of light around the hearth at the head of the room. He stands there, looking with gloom. A glass in his hand, a golden chain glints under his leather band. How time ticks, it reminds me, oh, how time ticks. How long life lasts, how long one lives, how quickly it goes away for someone else’s life to die. He meets my eyes, but I do not meet his. I turn away, not wanting to face those dark eyes—those black eyes. Those bleak hopeless eyes. Those cool eyes…those soft eyes…those remorseful eyes…those beautiful dark eyes. I look up to meet his, he had turned away. The fire does not stir.

White morning, white light, white flowers, white snow. It all falls, it all stirs—it all sits still. She and I stand side by side, once met only by eyes, she and I stand at his white bed, and look in upon him in his white vest. Forever we seemed to have wept, forever we seemed to have dreamt of all the days that were not left, forever we gaze upon his paling, ailing face, not one that is remembered by our living eyes. His eyes shall never meet ours, not again, not anymore, no more. This is the end, the white of heaven, and the white of mourning, this is the end.

There is mourning after end, and I cannot help but swagger from street to street, the brown glass between my fingers, as I drink, drink, and drink, never to my fill. I look over the bridge, and under the moon for answer in the false river stars, to find the answer to the heaviness in my heart, to find the meaning of such fury, such regret, such anger, such remorse. I try and find what lies beneath the surface of this god awful lie. It is not a lie, though.

“Who are we but a pair of fish in a river of a million, who are we but a pair of two in the dwindling city, where the lights are dwindling too, where the demons are singing, where the angels are falling, who are we but two? Who are we but two lost, who are we but two without a map, foreigners in our own homeland? Who are we but two? Who are we but one, one out of two, who are we?”

Pale morning, winter dusk, snow falls, city rusts. Days have come to past, eternity still awaits its time for calling. Together we sit, broken and drunk, in the field of gray-green, all trees seemingly charred and dead. Burned by the winter’s breath, and now withering naked. We lean on each other, there is no warmth in either of us, we are broken, we are broken…We are lost, we are one out of two, we are crumbling, but not apart, only in on each other. We are one….we are one.

How awful we must look, how disappointed he must be, how horrible this picture that we have created. Who are we, what are we? We are the two that were once vivacious and bold, vibrant and new, brilliant and stunning. We are now lackluster and out of tune, we search for our past selves, but ever to find them in the dark fog that had rolled in to warn of doom, is to search for a dove in the violent fury of God’s storm. We are never to find our past selves, but to found or future ones, we must act now, and to act now, we must first be judged. Where to be judged, where to be judged? At the marble stone, the marble stone engraved and jutting out of the ground. At the short obelisk where under, our former passion, our former friend who lies in his white bed, ivory between his hands. 

The summer sun sets at our feet, under the hill to hide. The magnolia tree hands over us, a green cloud of leaves, a beautiful swarm of earthen ravens, light climbs through the branches to reach us, to reach our faces, to reach his. He is warm—for once we are warm, I am warm, and we warm each other in the humid afternoon air. It feels good to be warm, to feel this bountiful hearth well within me, to feel this strange gold like passion stir within my bosom, and to be passed on to my lover. Why, we could lie her forever, under our tree, under our sun, under our love.

A Letter to his Beloved

What is this? What is this strange transcendence, this dance that we dance, this song that we sing, this quilt  that we wove? What is this? What is this, I ask you my dearest, what is this? Is it madness, it is passion, is it wonder at the world we have been torn into it? Why is it that all the universe must complicate us in our own kingdom? Why must it scald us with the essence of time and time again? Why my we face such horrors as that time spent from each other? Why must I only wonder what life is with you? Why do I stand her alone without you? Why is time so cruel, why must time be done? Why is time not an illusion, and be just? Why must time drive us? Why must time intervene between us? I say, that time, time is only a fantasy and illusion that drives us apart in our city of two, our beautiful and horrible broken city, where we are both blessed and wretched. Here in our city—our city—we are stretched apart, we are no one, insignificant by the face of the universe and by the light of the moon, as it scatters its pedals across the indigo river, a ribbon that snakes under the bridge, and drains into he midnight sky, that I look up on and I see you written in the stars, in those stars, I see you, in those stars I hear you, in those stars our love is inscribed. In those stars it seems that is where I will find you, for this illusion of time that we have come to create has driven us apart to far, only only in the stars are we together forever, for time does not exist there, it cannot exist, for time is not strong enough for the power of love, time is not strong enough to drive our stars apart, to drive our worlds apart, and to force it down around us, to crash our ball. This…this I hate, I hate this illusion of time, help me angels, help me face this illusion and answer me, why do you play this game, why must there be this wait, this perpetual and eternal length between I and my beloved? Why must there always be a cost to that which you love and is most sacredly forbidden? Can nothing be free in this life? Can nothing be simple? Can nothing be simply as lovely as my beloved? Can nothing be as simple as the stars written into the sky? Can nothing, can nothing, can nothing be as the universe is? Can nothing be just?

 A letter to her beloved

This dream, this beautiful dream, in this dream the angels do fall, but not for evil, not for sin, only for us to sing to us as a choir. They fall to be with us, they fall to come to us, they fall to save us from ourselves, but this is, alas, a dream and can never be a reality, for dreams are cursed by your illusion of time. Why you are so right, so brilliant, so bright. Our lives here in our city are but small and immeasurable to the sands of time that doom us to horrible fats, that condemn us to death, that wish to destroy us and burn us, and turn us, and break us down to send us on down the obsidian steps into harrowing madness as we are torn away from each other. What fury! What lust! What fire we must endure, and what must we do to be together, to break our illusion of time, as we constantly ask, why—why must there be this illusion of time, this veil between reality and the fake, why can there not be as simple, just answer. For the angels seem to not hear our prayers to be together and to abolish time and to follow up unto the stars, as you say, where our story is inscribed beyond time, where we are not condemned, where we cannot die, and where we will forever shine. We will sail the indigo ocean that originates from our sad river of time. Why, what a dream I must have, what I dream I have had, what a dream that I wish to be true—why is it not true? Why is it not true? Why is it not true! Oh, I dream lustfully for a world where time is undone, where we are not confined, we are only just. Where we dance forever in our own m midnight moon, where the midnight bell shall toll forever and we shall never leave, forever together, what a dream, what a dream. A world where time is undone, a world where there is just us. If only time were undone in our city of two, in our world of two, our perpetual dance of two. Just us, one in two, two in one. A dream, time undone.

So shallow in this room, where it is cold, even under the covers of woven silk, there is no warmth to be found. This warmth that was once there has once again gone, as the heavens play tricks on us, I curse them, I curse them! Damn those angels, and their accursed laughs, as they mock our loves for they cannot have none. Why must fate and the heavens bee so cruel upon us, as we are constantly thrown back and forth, it becomes tiring, and I wish that we could be joined in the stars, above the heavens and beyond the earth, in the stars where all lovers and all those lost will learn our story and tell it just as so. We will dance forever in the twilight, in the midnight, and at the dawn. Just like that night, the world shall forever stop, the watches will tick no longer, and we shall only watch each other, our hands clasped in each other’s, as we spin sun and moon, moon and sun. Dependent on each other as we waver and dwindle in this reality of the past and the present now. In the past life was ill and life was beautiful, in the present…in the present is all the same, is all the same, is all as though it were only yesterday repeated? Is this the true reality of the present now, and the past then?