gryphons_quill

We met through miles of fragile wire and glass,
through light that sped our words, our thoughts, our dreams
in streams of bits and bytes across the dark;
though even darkness, in these latter days,
has lost its mystery. Nothing hides
from lines of data crossing in the sky.

To touch more than your thoughts, I crossed the sky
in a fragile metal shell with panes of glass,
investigating clouds, where magic hides,
where thoughts are caught and yield fragmented dreams.
Above that blanket, sunlight loved the day;
beneath it sat a damp and gloomy dark.

When first I saw your face, the smothering dark
broke, as clouds reveal a clearing sky;
I felt the weight I'd carried all my days
crack and splinter, shattering like glass.
Surrounded by the fragments of old dreams,
I felt no need (nor any wish) to hide.

In a shy and gentle smile, beauty hides
and, shining, bears a light into the dark.
By night, entwined in sleep, we shared our dreams
and on imagined wings took to the sky--
I sought to catch our love in silvered glass
to keep it safe before the light of day.

We lived our love through endless nights and days,
a radiance that convention couldn't hide.
A joy was in me, sharp as shards of glass
and all my world was bright: the muted dark
that once had leeched the sunlight from my sky
fled toward the corners of my palest dreams.

Now, remembering our secret dreams,
I carry you inside me day by day;
my winged self would gladly search the skies,
chase streams of data where old magic hides--
I'd even dive into the looming dark
to find your light in more than wire and glass.

I found you in my dreams, and there I hide
on hazy days; but you've parted the dark:
my skies are clear, as sharp as cloudless glass.

I loved you far too much and far too well
and now I don't know how to let you go;
still, I wouldn't keep you if I could,
for you deserve a better love than me.
Yet even as I live my life alone,
I crave your slightest touch, a single word.

Not long ago, you left me many words,
which, though I tried, I understood not well;
I only knew that I was left alone,
to stand, and then to fall, watching you go
away from our tiny home, away from me--
no words explaining how you ever could.

I never thought of leaving, never could.
I thought that we were bound by more than words,
so, when you turned and took your love from me
I'm afraid I didn't take it very well.
I was afraid that once I let you go
I would spend the rest of my life alone.

You once told me I'd never be alone,
that, with your love to hold me, I never could,
and so I never feared that you would go.
But some cold wind has scattered all your words,
the pretty vows of love you spoke so well--
that you still speak, but no longer to me.

Now the world seems dark and cold to me.
My fears and shadows won't leave me alone.
If I could just believe you loved me well
I'd bid my ghosts goodbye--perhaps I could!
--but then I know these thoughts are only words
and have no strength to make my nightmares go.

I will have to learn to let you go
and still believe that once you cared for me,
that when you said "forever" you meant the word,
but now it's time for me to be alone.
You cannot love me now, but once you could,
and in that time you loved me very well.

If you would say a single word to me,
I'd go to you as quickly as I could.
As well you don't.  I need to be alone.