Like cadavers are so many lovers.
Drunk on a table for two,
laid out and cut open
examined, weighed and cataloged,
yes,
cupid has your number.

He sharpens his arrows.
"Oh, how cute! He's like a baby!"
Shut it!
He's a monster.

It was nothing serious.
Angela and I were noncommittal,
then,
it just...
Happened!
I kissed her and she lost her footing.
Her legs slackened like climber's loose rope.
Angela fell, hard.
I pulled out the arrow. (I only wish I had disinfectant.)
She was breathing funny. I wasn't sure what bit her,
but when her eyes flickered open,
I felt the shame she would never know.
I looked up in time to see a fluttering of white.
A dove? I was too naive.
Angela started to get clingy. That's when I got stingy.
Soon, I began to ignore messages selectively.
Eventually, she was a fading memory.

Monica. Jessica. Lisa. Monique.
The story kept repeating itself.
"Get a grip, love was chasing you! Some should be so lucky..."
If that grip is cupid's neck, give me two handfuls, please.
I nearly stopped ******* around altogether,
haunted by feather after feather,
but I really just learned to play it safe.
Cut them off after a couple of weeks.
I'll never forgive Cupid, that rotten ****.

Her name was Felicia.

It was day thirteen.
I had my copied and pasted, "Sorry," SMS ready to go.
We were engaged in pillow talk,
it was nothing serious.
Sarcasm turned into playfulness.
We rolled over,
she had me pinned,
she nibbled on my earlobe,
and with artful tongue stroked
years of pain
from my soul.
She reared back.
Our eyes locked in mutual reverence.
We smiled and embraced letting our slick bodies revel in the moist residue of our tender frolicking.
It was then that I felt the itch in my shoulder blade.
Color and warmth fled my chest.
It was with a numbness that I let her go,
and reach back,
and felt the long spine of the arrow,
like the stem of a scythe.

The weeks that followed were a heaven
that I had always hoped not to enjoy
and felt ever more guilty in knowing my unfettered happiness.
Simple pleasures I once knew were then mountains of joy.
My passions magnified were as the flames of the sun.
I even feared I could turn her away with mentions of my love,
but this was not an unrequited venture.
We shared in admissions of our deepest affections.
There was not a moment passed in yearning of our old lives.
Even shedding light on our past imperfections was a delight
incapable of breaking the spell.
Truly, this is the purpose of youth; this love; this roaring of souls entwined.

Is justice blind?

I certainly felt this token of nature cast its judgment upon me.
No sooner than I had finally accepted my new reality, did I watch this sheltering bubble burst.
We weren't as open as I had imagined, of course, I shouldn't be so naive to think so.
She disappeared. I was distraught for what seemed like weeks, but.
I got a phone call.
The phone call led to a hospital. Within the hospital, a room.
Within that room, she lay on a bed, head shaved, smiling weakly.
I sat hesitantly by her side.
She grinned as she pinned me with a pink ribbon.
"You'll fight with me, right?" She said, as her eyes searched my soul,
quivering, yet there was a fierce strength behind the weariness.
"If I don't fight, I'll lose more than losing you."
She lay her head in my chest. A chest that could lend its power.
Looking out of the window into the horizon, I wished for things I never considered to be signs of hope. Yes, I'll fight...

In that moment of my life, it was as if I weren't alive.
Perhaps my body was waiting for me to return: sitting there, breathless.

Are brave words the measure of fate?
Oh, I wish this were so, yet some battles only time can win.

I didn't go to the funeral. I simply asked that I may scatter the ashes.
It was a moment for two. I stood on a cliff by the sea, a place she and I loved. I spoke to her, in ways I knew she deserved. I scattered the ashes, and I knew she had returned to the promise of life, a place beyond time and pain.

And so, time passes for me.

In time, I am ready to love another.
A familiar itch in the shoulder blade.
I know the arrow is there.
I look up and there is cupid, smiling.
No need to hide from a gracious soul.
I gaze and I whisper:

"Please, Cupid. This time, don't leave me breathless."