What a fantasy you are—truly a fantasy.
I am beginning to believe that I must have made you up.
The world does not notice you as I do. I see you in everything.
I dream of you in white, the purity of your soft soul,
the dress you wear in my thoughts as we kiss at the altar.

I feel your strength in the weight of my crown.
The beds of my fingernails ache strangely when I say your name aloud.
I have forbidden myself the pain, but even as I establish distances from you,
I break down my own fences. Only the other day, I cut myself on the sword's blade
and I was convinced that your blood was mine.

I have never been one to succumb completely to religion,
but you are the exception to all my beliefs.
I was convinced that I was placed on this earth to be your lover;
not in the simple mundane way that a man loves a woman,
but in an unyielding, unfaltering, undying way.

The way the heart loves its lifeblood, the way the starved love food,
the way children love stories, the way the flowers love the earth,
the way the sky loves the wind, the way the moon loves the tide,
the way believers love their gods, the way slaves love a prophecy,
the way heroes love their ballads made of glass.

And still, I become shards, the most elemental form of stardust.
I miss you and that pains me, I want you and that cuts me, I love you and that kills me.
I write letters in the dark to you because I do not know how else to reach you, in a kingdom
where your people erase your existence by not erasing it at all, by not even having known of it.
The mad man has to convince himself that he is not mad because no one else will.

But I have the will, for all of your lost witnesses, I must witness you.
For all of your dark acquaintances, I must know you.
And I know you. I knew you. We traded breaths into each other's lungs
as if to save a drowning child, o, and how we tried. You must have brought me
back to life a hundred times or so, the count matters not to me, only that you are my savior.

How can you do it? How can you save me and destroy me all at once?
If you knew of the power you held in your little finger alone, you would have kingdoms falling at your feet.
The lashes of your eyes, the knuckles of your hands, the corners of your mouth, the folds of your sex
tell histories of power, of tyranny, of strength, how your prisoners came to you ever so willing.
I do not fault you, my darling, though I do come from a bloodline of envy,
I understand now that I was also your prisoner.

The explanation to why I cannot escape you lies within my own willing ruin.
O, Your Majesty, why must I go on like this?
Have I not convinced you yet that I have sacrificed my heart for yours?
Must you see it happen? Well, come home and look at me!
Try to deny the blood seeping from my chest, falling to my feet. Try to return it to me.

You cannot. The only thing you remain powerless against is my love for you.
What must I do for you to believe me?
What must I do for you to come back to me?
What does all of it take?
My undoing? Have it. It is already done.

I am already undone.
I am already undone.
I am already undone.
I am already undone.
I am already undone.

Do not read this, hear this, feel this, know this.
This is not a poem. This is not a ballad.
I am not made of glass. I am made of blood.
Do with that what you must. Do it and let it be done.
I will love you still. Do you not understand that I will love you still until the end of time?

You are a goddess, not a woman, but I will serve you still.
Pagan and foreign as you might be, I will accept you.
But why must you be such a heartless deity?
If I must entertain you more, tell me to invent rhymes for you.
Tell me something, tell me anything, tell me a lie, tell me a secret, tell me a cruel goodbye.

What a fantasy you are—truly a fantasy!
I see you in everything; everything reveals you,
as if the heart of all things is you, my darling sin, my sweet undoing.
You are the fragrance of roses, the melody of lullabies, the insteps of my feet,
and so I follow you even without meaning to.

You are my shadow, you are my breath, you are my horizon,
things I can never reach, but yet I live with the illusion that I once held you
at my fingertips. What will one more ballad do?
How merciless of you to keep me tied to my window with my eyes closed,
hoping that when I open them you will be there.

I will tell you one thing.
I am not the boy you fell in love with.
I am changing,
I am breaking.
I am yours and that is all.

- Yours