My star-crossed lover,
who never bonded
to be with me in this life.
Maybe in another universe,
where people won’t judge us,
we could be together freely,
without the fear of being discovered.

Is the distance making you mournful,
like Orpheus and Eurydice?
Like heaven and hell,
can’t keep us afar?

Is my love tearing you apart,
by the weight of
the longing and yearning,
by my desire to be with you?

Is my love crashing into you,
like a thunderstorm hitting the ground?

Does your electric heart
feel like breaking into pieces too,
my star-crossed lover?

I'm Eurydice and you're Orpheus
But now it's too late, because you turned
How will you manage without me, babe?
Without, my touch, my voice, our best days

I lost it all, maybe myself too
I wish that you could turn me into
The happy, the pretty, the best in your eyes
Just to find out that you never needed us

You never needed me, but you're Orpheus
You're a myth and maybe I'm mine too
Funny how I make it up in my brain
The idolized life I want to be in with my babe

She was the arms he took up
when the viper robbed his lyre of its muse

She was the devotion he carried underground to bring her home again

She was the mourning sonata that caused Hades to weep

She was the echos of longing that made him turn back

She was the immortal whisper in the dark of his guilt
That said
Orpheus
Don't forget about us

The ground beneath her

feet has taken her, the earth --


whose praises I sang.

Just like Orpheus,
I descended.
Though,
my digression was
for different
reasons.
Yeah, I tried to
rescue you from
your hell.
Bring you out of
the degradation,
the debauchery.

It smelled like
***** and ****.
The swine squealed.
The harpies shrieked.
And,
I looked
too long.
I became you.

Thank God I escaped.
Fate dragged me
out by the scruff
of my neck.
I will never
visit your
underworld
again.
You've made it
your home.

i always fancied myself a eurydice
the perfect victim in a perfect tragedy

but you have me feeling like orpheus
and i can't stop wondering if i would have looked back

and i know i would have if you asked me to

i don't believe in soulmates,
but i think we came close.
skin to skin, i read your palm,
but how was i supposed to know?

what do you do when your red string
gets caught in the door?
i never could untangle it,
and i didn't know how to be loved by you anymore.

i ask constellations how you're doing
and dodge your calls.
in the summer, you'll trace my palms
and we'll defy stars as trivial.

there's always something about good things i want to ruin.
there's no version where orpheus doesn't turn around.
it's not so much precognizance but
digging up the same old burial ground.

it's not so much what you read
in between freckles and lines, but the sense
of connection, a familiarity of skin on skin
and a practiced willingness to drop the pretense.

what a wicked thing i was.
i turned back, anyway.

the devil i dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all,
it called itself her fate,
took my place by her side
and told her it was time to go, 
everyone was waiting 
down below,

the devil she dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all, 
i called myself her lover, 
and she loved me in kind, 
and when she’d gone
i couldn’t understand
why she’d leave me behind,

if nothing else
i had to see her
one last time,

the devil we dealt with 
wasn’t a devil at all,
it called itself inevitable
yet decided to let us go,
said it would see us again
one day, together 
down below,

i didn’t think to ask her
what she wanted,
if the hands of fate
were warmer than my own. 
if i had kept on looking forward, 
maybe i would know.

what a wicked thing i was. 
i turned back, anyway. 

                                                       ­                                       "was she upset?"

i couldn’t say. 
she smiled the whole time,
and when she disappeared
it was all she left behind.