And so she dusted the gold off her fingers
while his yellow eyes dulled to brown.
And the fascination they once held for each other
yielded to slumber in a bathe tub to drown.
So it was only the porcelain grave that knew
Of the way she pressed her lips to his collarbone
And decorated him with the words “I love you”
Or why, some how, he had always known
she would let him in, if he moved slowly closer.
Yes, that was how the friendship had grown.
He had started out as some sort of brother,
captivated by casual feminine curves
and stern yet smiling eyes of clover.
While she enjoyed his impish child-like pride,
a wiry body, too strong for it’s size,
and the comfort of having a someone to guide.
As these things go, neither could fathom
how they had so quickly become one soul
in two bodies, or so says Aristotle’s wisdom.
Each spoke to the other with out agenda or qualm
relishing banter, advice, and general chatter while
gravity pulled head into lap and palm into palm.
But, you see, as luck would have it,
life stepped in to wreak it’s havoc
both of these creatures were bearing a burden
the male of which, had to burry his burden
Donning a somber black suit and painful frown,
Deemed new man of the house, a premature crown.
And the female journeyed to the Atlantic.
A sojourn planned too far in advance,
he was left bereft across the North American expanse.
The years passed and the porcelain did chip.
Now with every moon that sets
there isn’t a morn she wakes with out pangs of regret.
For she was not there to protect,
cherish, anoint, kiss, and adore,
the child’s heart that the man that she loved bore.
She and he will never know if she could
have enveloped him in his toil and grievance.
An act that if properly preformed, should
transcend their relationship of cursory romance.
This act you see, is one of beauty
An event that can quite single handedly
give a jaded girl’s and a lost boy’s life some needed meaning.
So I’ll leave to you to decide
who, in the end had the was left with more pride.
Was it he, who lost his father, and a sister or mother or lover,
but learned to swim strong against misfortune’s tide?
He, who eventually forgave the muse of his past.
Who will laugh last? Who will laugh last?
Or was it she who was forcefully taught that pain
and regret are a game both one in the same.
That it’s guilt who wields a splendorous molten wrath.
So, defeated, she dipped her head under,
for a final ceremonial bath.
Succumbing to beautiful slumber.
As the last bubble dimples the now cold water,
one could hardly help but wonder,
What was the burden, what was the strain,
that afflicted the maiden, to a place just past sane?