Sylvia & Ted

The thread of her words seems unbreakable in your eyes.
And me?
Just incapable of prising you away
From her poisoned green eyed stare
That would not even dare to return the furtive glances
You thought I could not see.
Maybe in your mind you are Siamese twinned
(Like you and I in mine);
Her intoxicating presence lingering in our lives,
Despite the fact she is not
Supposed to be here,
And I am.

I am the one with the steadfast passion,
The fiery eyes
You would always never forget.
The one to refuse goodbyes.
But how precarious we stand,
How thin the line to walk
Between the shuffling
Murder of goodbye
And the trickling days of forever
That house the love in which we would have happily drowned.

Perhaps it is all those words
I breathe in daily
Where nothing is simple or beautiful
Without catastrophe to
Scar the days
Like the purple scars on my wrists
That sing like Roman royalty
To passers-by.
And you, with your demoniac
And tragic heroism,
Your famous secrets
That mean nobody can ever really reach you.

And so we begin again;
Begin that twisted waltz
We forever step together.
And hard as it is for me to admit…
Maybe it isn’t perfect anymore;
Maybe my books and yours
Have given us those ideals
We swore we’d never hold.
Perhaps the creeping doubts that steal my sleep
Are trying to teach me how to tear away,
How to run or flee or anything to escape this suffocating life.

The line we walk is thin,
The words we choose vital
To the depths of our seas
And lengths of our worlds.
I would rip your Shakespeare
Page by page
To tear her from our lives;
To break the monotony of misery
That you and she inflict.

Maybe I shall be immortal
And shall drench the world with the words
I can craft from nothing.
He shall be immortal too;
Cruel? A bully?
How will they cast him
In the mystery of the unknown future?
I shall be known as the poetess
Who dreamt of fire;
Drawn, moth-like,
Not to the flame itself
But to the aura of absolute darkness at the light’s edge.