Every Empire falls.
Every reign ends.
Every time.
Every Time.

So tell me, whisper into
my ear if it makes you more
comfortable, my god the things
we do for comfort,
tell me, my friend:
How will this Empire end?

Will it be in fire?
A large bang, followed in course
by smaller ones into a
rubble and tear filled
oblivion?

I think it’ll be a whimper.
I think it will fall apart inside itself,
so slowly and so quietly
that when it’s over we’ll
wonder if it ever was to
begin with.

I’d like it to be a fire.
I’d like it to be a boom or a bang.
I’d like it to end in glory,
if possible.
I’d like it to end with you.

There is something in the breeze.
Something about your scent.
Some secret thing that passes,
from you to me, like telepathy.
It catches in the wind,
blows back like sand in our eyes.
I can feel it even now, miles apart
in distance and certainty apart
in moral high grounds.

I loved you when we were children.
I loved you in a way I didn’t understand,
in a way I still struggle to understand.
The electricity of breathing in the same air.
You moved, not like water or silk in
a light wind, but with the calm purpose
of sports figures and politicians.
I always had to fake the confidence you
were born with.
I loved you for it.

If the rain gets any harder, I fear that
we’ll be swept to sea.
You and me crashing against the waves.
Borrow my strength, it is all I have to
give, it is all I know to give.
Float next to me, I will do the swimming.
When we are awash on our own island,
I will build for you the life you always wanted.
I want you to understand,
to feel from me what I feel for you.
Returning that feeling has always
been for you to decide.

My limbs ache in captivity.
I stretch in these shallow confines
and feel hard wall and harder resolve.
Freedom will be mine.
If only for these minutes
or that hour,
My god, if only for today!

I have watched you spend
time.
I have seen you preform these
great labors.
I have noticed the effort,
the struggle
the care
with which you constructed
the perfect cage to keep me.
I think you proud of these
walls and this narrow slat
that light can trickle through.

But there are so many things,
so many things, friend,
which you have left unconsidered.
Yes, you have left me no key
and yes, one would be useless
were I to have it.
Yes, you have forced me to
stay. Yes, you have created in
your trap a mechanism which I need.

You must sleep. In those dark hours
I may yet steal away.
You never thought I could learn to
need less and want only one thing.
You built this cage to keep who I was.
You didn’t consider who I am.

I will be free.
I will be whole.
I will feel the wind against my back.
I will not look back,
I will never try to find you again.

You keep me for now,
because I don’t know how to
be anything but kept.
I’m learning.
I’ve had a good teacher.

You are a crucible,
within you are the ingredients
that will coalesce into such
wonderful shape and form.
I am an unlit pyre aching to burn

Find the spark that will
push me to ignite.
Feel for the pressure that
will force your contents to unite.

You will make forever in your own shape.
A fine thing it will be.
People will look on your
achievement and inundate
you with deserved praise.
You are more than a glorified stain.
You are permanent. You will last.

I am almost nothing.
I will blaze for such a short time.
Ash and dust and nothing.
But, my god,
my friend,
my love,
I have such a gift for you.

Watch as I burn.

Color my smile in you vibrant shades.
Knowing the edges of my cast shadow
is a freedom of sorts.
Find the stars in my eyes, each with
the name you knew to be true.
Kiss me with any of the seven kinds
that you know. I yearn for them all.
Know me in your slow and steady way,
one hand on the back board one on my chest.
Love me as you always have. Without
condition and with only desperate need.
Sing to me, the songs you love and more so, the
ones you only barely know. I love those the best.
Close your hands around me, and cage me
like a firefly so that I might shine for you.
So that I might make you smile.
Any one of the hundreds you know.

Look for me in the usual places,
that is where I’ll be.

Find me smiling at an old joke,
heard so many times it has become
an old friend, and you will know me.

Hear me call out across a room,
perhaps it is gentle and perhaps loud.
Spot me and you will never go alone.

Know my secret name, the one
that only you are entitled to because it
is the one you gave me. Keep it with you.

Run through these empty three am streets,
giddy like children on adrenaline and life
and together we will tear the sky down around us.

Believe me when I tell you that I love you.
It is not lightly said and it is always deeply meant.
It is the first of three gifts that I will give.

Love is a contradiction without terms.
It is often compared to music,
but that doesn’t sum it up.
It is thought to come from ***,
but that is less than a third of it.
It is said to come from the heart,
but it’s true location is only known to
the people suffering under it.

Love is not one thing or another.
It is not a thing that fills,
nor is it a thing that drives.
It is not freshly fallen snow,
or the first red leaf of Autumn.

It is pleasure, and it is pain
and it is both and neither and all.
It is not found in books,
or songs,
or contact
or smiles.

It does not live in a gentle embrace,
or a baby’s breath.
You can not spot it’s home
from the eyes.
It is not in these places,
it would be a fool’s errand to look for it there.

Love cannot be defined or quantified.
It cannot be discovered or hunted.
It does not just happen, although it
happens all the time.

If you are extremely lucky,
and profoundly doomed,
you will know it when you know it.
Do not cherish it, do not avoid it,
accept it.
That is all that can be done.