Modern Romanticism

Over the mantle, where fewest feathers were laid,

Like a softness I did not comprehend,

Was the only one ever made.

A breath was all it took to send each feather away

From atop the mantle, put in place.

I lost where the key went

To her heart.

I lost where the pain leapt

From her delicate sides,

I had anger for the world, and nothing to show

For a gift from my heart

That bleeds now in the mud.

Over the softness,

That blankets her body.

My heart holds the same thud, the same rhythm

To the pulse remaining in her veins.

What can I feel

In her?

What can I show for the tears

To stain her weathered years?

Love was once a kindness,

And all I feel is emptiness.

Like some child in curiosity,

There is blankness to every crevice

I have ever felt.

Two steps to the edge remaining,

One for each foot.

And I am stilled like the moon overhead,

While beneath is my grave

Where I may join the breathed motions of where she was placed,

In a chest,

Inside herself,

Like love merely trampled her over.