Modern Romanticism

A captive. Once,
a stranger to your
fervent glance. Here,
being one man, one less
pain, for your symptoms
are as bare as petals,

being all color, without awareness
of a beauty’s demeanor.

I keep this place of myself,
a prison, a maze
where veins are hallways
inside your broken heart.
Who had eroded you?
Who had given you a glimpse
of what cannot be needed,

cannot be seeded,
when all you do is burn?

I listen to your heartbeats –
a pillow for my head,
when you pretend to die for all
that shouldn’t be a memory
upon our discolored walls.

I watch you suffer
almost from miles apart,
as I cannot heal a history
that needs, only needs
to be laid to rest.

I have grown roses in winter,
keeping them from wilting
merely with my hands,

but you will let them wilt,
you will find desertion
better the relief, like your grief.