What is a muse
If not what we imagined him to be.
What the sculptors carved at
stony, stoic frames.
Don’t think, they say,
You’ll crumble.

He is not worshiped as myth
Have us believe.
He is the sacrificial lamb
Bleeding ambrosia at the altars
Of Tragedy
And Art.

The gods steal kisses,
Greedy grab-fulls of delicacy,
Imitating the swan
Like curve of his neck,
The eagle-like majesty.
Did Ganymede not want more for himself? Did not Antinous?

The flight of wax wings
Melt into the sea,
As his skin soaks in the summer sun.
How golden and fragile,
Like the kintsugi vases made of antiquity,
Holding the crosses he must bear.

Biting at his lips,
Spilling languid, divine promises
Of youth-filled love and adoration
Until he is left empty, unheld.
Nectar bleeds from his veins,
And bees fly to his sunflower tattoos,
While he waits among the shades.

Perfection is a curse.
A candle in the wind made only in wait of another’s flame.