I can smell you on my fingers,
I can feel you on my skin,
But where are you going?
And where have you been?
Do you still think of me?
Do you still cry?
Or like candlelight
Did your love flicker and die?
Though my candle still burns,
I’m filled with a chill
The cold shadow cast
It reaches me still.
The flame won’t go out
Though I try all in vain,
I fear not to be freed
Of its shadow again.
Now my head is hexed,
And my heart is screaming,
And shall be as long
As you haunt my dreaming.
So cover your ears,
Shut out the sound.
But how long will I fall before I hit the ground?

She is like a siren. That is not to say that she is some sort of sea witch that lures sailors to their graves, do not misunderstand me, but rather that she possesses the kind of beauty that sinks ships. Knowing full well that if we stray too close we will be dashed upon the rocks and our merry vessel will be torn to shreds, we press on ever further in her direction, arms spread wide like sails, and I will proudly shout from the crow’s nest, “Oh, my captain, we have run aground again, and this time I fear we shall never break free!” For it is surely madness that drives us; that makes us happy fools if not dead ones, that we would brave a sea of treachery for only a chance at her hand… No, there simply must be more to it than that.
     She is indeed an artist; keeper of both artistic promise and foolish ambition, and yet she is wise enough to tell the difference. She is unfooled by serpents, yet kind to their lovers, for she knows they suffer too. Her womanly charms attract all whom lay their eyes upon her, and yet her modesty captivates, beguiling me like no other. Her eyes shine like tide pools, yet they possess all the wonder and depth of the seven seas; and it is for this reason I fear to look upon them too long, lest I be lost within them. The flow of the tides are in her hair, and as I run my fingers through it, one moment it is a soft as the wind in our sails, and in the next it becomes thick and coarse like my own, and I open my eyes to find that I have been dreaming; Asleep on the deck dreamily running my hands over the tangled fibers of an old rope.
     But even now as I sit in the warmth of the sun, pen in hand, the cold spray of doubt falls upon my back and I am beset by the question, “would anyone ever read the tale of the siren and the crow?” You see, it is not the sea that I fear, nor the serpents or sirens or any other creature of the deeps; what I fear most is that if she knew I pursued her she would flee, leaving me and mine alone in her wake. Surely mine is not the only vessel that sails this route, and surely there are others more fit to weather the journey, but what good is there in jumping ship if even a thread of hope yet remains?
     **** the dangers and let the course unfold; I’ll not give in so easily. Storms, serpents and shipwreck, let them all come. We will press on full speed ahead, and if we should be so breached, I will doom myself and rob my captain of his final honor, for I, I must go down with the ship.