Growing up and knowing you give me sighs of bliss,
Didn't you say we're Patroclus and Achilles?
That we are one soul abiding in two bodies,
Just for you, my best friend, I will make a promise.
You said that if Patroclus' fate's same with mine,
You'll try to make Achilles' fate same with thine
Our corpse lying next to each other would be sign,
Of a true, intimate friendship that is sublime.
Bringing those memories we made in Macedon,
The celebrations of battles we've always won,
I never lost, because I'm with you, Hephaestion,
My only defeat's when I lost you and you're gone.
I am just a general, and you are a king,
We have this love, but this love can do us nothing,
Love is not all that both of us will be needing,
You need an heir, we need wives we'll be marrying.
But even though now I have an heir and a wife,
It would be still you and me in the afterlife,
Even if it means I will be stabbed by a knife,
I'd love you, even this kind of love is not rife.
But even if we died and left this world early,
In separate deathbeds, we made love intimately,
Even if I made my last hurrah without thee,
You kept that promise, that nobody promised me.
This poem is inspired by the romance between Alexander the Great and his general and close friend, Hephaestion.