Darling,
This pain will last forever.
I'm bleeding out,
Lovingly dismembered,
Hung on hooks.
Cherished.
A spectral heart
Pumping dust
throughout my veins.
This holy temple,
Now in ruins.
Now a tomb.
Burning, desecrated.
Love laid gently to rest...
Godless, evermore.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

I don't remember,
The last time I cared as much
As I care about you.
Everything,
Everyone
Else has always
Felt rather temporary
And disposable.
(And I never minded that).

I don't know if that's
Tragic or beautiful.

Don't mistake my silence
for strength.
It's not acceptance.
It's not me moving on,
Nor indifference.
I am quiet for you,
Lovingly so.
Sweet in intention.
In meaning,
In heart.
So if my tongue is cut,
Lifeless.
It's because I love you.
Despite
This solitude.
This suffocation.
In every minute,
In every pause.
The cost —
You're removing me.

If you come as softly
As the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.

If you come as lightly
As threading dew
I will take you gladly
Nor ask more of you.

You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
Only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.

And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask you why now.
Or how, or what you do.

We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich between us
Shall drink our tears.

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
  A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
  And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat
  And set in decorous lines;
And there are posies, round and sweet,
  And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
  From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
  Out wailing in the rain.

I'm trying to be a good and patient man.
Purpose-built in her honour.
Each missing aspect,
Quantified by necessity.
To reconstruct
This urgent self.
Block by block.
Measure for measure.
A lie,
Built on truth.
Beauty,
Born of ash.
Love,
Stacked on sorrow.