Agape.
To love unconditionally.
Attributed to the greats:
Gandhi,
Mandella,
Teresa,
God?

And me.

I offer an alternate:

Agape.
To crawl back repeatedly,
Ignoring a history and future of pain.

Agape noun
Unconditional love. A weakness, not a strength.

By the law of Finders Keepers, you're rich.
But she didn't see it that way
Did she?

Theft she called it.
But who cares for a few plants?
What are they worth?

Barely anything - A mumbled apology -
Your first born?
Or your life.

So bye bye baby.

Did you hear her cry
From the tower?
She screamed as her hair was ripped

From the weight of that
Enchantress.
But you never knew.

You met a man once,
Who spoke of a girl.
He stood blinded by thorns,

Blinded by her foolishness.
But loved her still.
Sought her still.

You thought such a girl
Must be priceless.
Jewelled seraph you thought.

Little did you realise
Her worth was little more
Than a few rapunzel plants.

The walls are circling now,
Closing in around me,
And the demons push forward,
Sparring my sides.

I am surrounded.

Oh dove,
This is not your place.
Your freedom taunts me.
Why do you choose to witness such torture?

Exorcist,
You cast the leathered bats from me.
You, who watches me writhe
Utters spells and prayers,
And pulls me from my depths.

Oh dove,
I shall gasp water when you flee.

The bullet whistled,
And a number fell.
I watched the life drain from him,
His clammy features grey,
And he reached a cold numbness.

I can not fall to this fate.
Born lifeless, the stars have no hold over me.
I am invincible.

I am gone.

You rehearse the same monotonous lines,
Adding emotion. Making your victim believe,
In this short pantomime you've set up.
Convincing her of your character.
Now, let her slip into belief.
She is no more then your puppet.
Watch her dance around you, gaily,
Until the time comes to cut the strings.
She'll beg you not to. She'll scream and
Cry against such torture.
And you'll paint that cruel smile onto your lips,
And repeat the same monotonous lines
With quite a different meaning.

You'll take her life, and leave her to the dogs.
And you'll prepare for the next show,
Rehearsing those same monotonous  lines.

I watch you fall from grace,
And in my solitude, your masked
Demons claw me.
Guilty by association.
I plead, but they persist,
Dragging me to their abyss,
Until company arrives, and they
Flee from the light shed.

My companion pounces on dust,
Pounding the ground ahead of me,
Tracking our path.
This is euphoria,
And today I own it.
I grin at strangers,
passing through my land.
They think me strange.
The valley reclines, lazy in the sun.
I am these paths, these hills.
My friend leads the others from me,
My bodyguard. I am not threatened.
I keep on striding, vocals powering
Through me. I stray from my kingdom.
Too cocky, too confident I
Stray to the forbidden.
They no longer look to me. Now they swarm,
I cannot work out their source.
They stare and hate me.
You stand by my side,
Exhausted and loyal.
I am safe still.

Let the fated stars tumble down,
For who could ever stop them.
Maybe they could free us,
Maybe we could follow them into their oblivion.
He looked at her.
She stared back silent,
Her eyes sore, her cheeks
Tracing tears.
She was never beautiful.

We never entered into the
'No you hang up. No you hang up'
Game.
Instead we raced to end phonecalls.
Refusing to admit love.
Playing our own game.
It stopped when you cheated.
Games always stop when people cheat.

And it took some time to find a new game.
But one was found all the same.
Still teasing,
Still against eachother, rather then as a team,
Until you tired of games.
You wanted more.
Happiness had to have meaning now.
And so that game stopped.

And now the world seems dreary,
And it bores me,
But it's real.
And next time maybe I won't play games.
Next time.
Maybe next time.

It was always a competition.
But who were we to deny a challenge.
And so, for a short while,
The two most egocentric were joined,
As the perfect couple.
The kind you envied. And we laughed
At your jealousy,
And sought it further.
We could beat anyone.
The arts and logic were combined,
And we thrived off eachother.
We laughed and ******.
And the energy bouncing off the walls
Was enough to fulfil any aspirations.
But where were our enemies?
Where was our battle to conquer?
For ones friend was the others foe,
And the selfish don't require support
From loved ones.
Loyalties were questioned.
But silently. No words were spoke
For too long. We just
Glared at eachothers back.
Until it built up into hatred.
For logic and literature
Don't compliment eachother.
And the determined do not wish to be changed
By someone elses will.
So the claims of love,
Were revealed to be mere passion,
In the heat of the moment.

But still we race.
Blindly now, failing to see the others progress.
Trying to be rid of eachother.
Trying to be the first to not need the other.
Maybe you've made it to the line.
I'm still running.

The time has come, my darlings,
For us to fight or flight.
And you know that I was never famed for my sprinting.
Invested emotions were long tossed away,
And when they told me I never loved true enough
I know they didn't lie.
Adrenaline lets me live,
And while we write prose,
We are not afraid of fighting *****.