Modern Romanticism

I dread what goes forward,
carried by empty wagons,
leaving marks, dragging on
this evidence of toil.

Life dried me up,
after I buried her near.
Love tied me up
when I welcomed fear
as a guiding light
into the dark.

I face what lingers inward,
concealed under ruins
of no one's making.

There are seats,
there are portraits
hung upon walls
where no one, besides me
decides to walk,
means to follow.

There's everything
that won't be tended to,
after the one beauty
fell to an aftermath.

There's only this state
of unbinding a heart
that refuses to detach
from leeching devotion.

Don't force me to retreat
into tears of deceit,
down to the truth I'd feel
love made me kneel.

Don't forgive me after I
will come to realize
that one great lie
was a rose's cause.