Incomplete,
in defeat.
Stagnant, and apart
from you, on the brittle highway,
leaving bloodstains where I
collided, removing clots,
removing barricades
where I was meant to stop.
Will you still take to me,
crippled, red rose?
How beautiful you sprout
in the deformed night.
Red petals, bleak stem,
with remembrance to your
subtle changes
that left me to bury this heart
in the scentless earth.
Changes, the rearrangements
to what was born on white pages,
left off to die at its ending.
A tale told with fading ink,
a twist to lips with the faint grimace,
all subtle in pinpoint decor.
Changes, mysterious to the signs
that were intricate in design.
If love renews at the open door,
then let the sun set
to the ocean’s floor.
Let the heart sink
within the pages of fading ink.
Let the eyes reopen
without memory
of the dream that shut the door
to changes made in the seasons,
love remade with the reasons
that dropped the knees
to the depth of love,
to the depth of a grave.
Modern Romanticism 