calliope

Lover, tell me

Title: Lover, tell me
Dated: June 2019
References: N/A

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Did you ever love me? I thought you did

once

(once, under the full moon, it rained sheets of starlight on your face, your face which was turned to mine which was turned to yours— my face, which held the remains of your radiance. my face, which had the privilege of basking in your warmth, like the dying embers of crackling stones

–and you told me—

“sweet-heart, you don't know the half of it”

—and you told me—

“i will lasso the sun for you”

—and you told me—

“you have me, heart and soul”)

Sweetheart, your sweet-heart has broken; I am broken from your empty promises. I do not hold anger, only bitter emptiness that taste sweet on my tongue. There are beasts that take shelter in winter, there are birds that flock to warmer lands, and then there is you—

(you, for which my entire world tilts and turns and shakes, you for which planetary systems revolve.

You handle the world carelessly on the tips of your fingers, spinning people to your tune, laughing as they go.

As you go.)

Did you ever love me? It is the only question I have left.

I should have known that suns do not need moons to survive. Poets have written a dozen books about people like you; lovers who sneak into the rooms of people like me, drunk on dandelion wine. Lovers who wax lyrical about people like me, and people like me who had hoped that whatever you sang had been true.

It had not been true, and yet—

—I hoped.

(I lied.

It is not the only question I have left—no, far from it.

But it is the only one I cannot accept.)

There are variables that people can control, and there are circumstances that people cannot. You were a circumstance, not a variable. You were the tornado that caressed my face, you were the summer rain on my being, you were hailstorm on a windowpane. You were a circumstance and a force of nature, though I had wished you were not.

Did I ever love you?

Yes I did,

once

(once, not under the bright light of a bright moon, but on a bright day nonetheless. when you had looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky, and I had hoped that I would be enough for you, but I knew that moons are never enough for suns

—and yet I hoped—

that you would be content

—and yet I hoped—

that you would stay

—and yet I hoped—

that you would love me too)