Poems Don't Have to Rhyme

Letter to a Prideful Lover

They will not pity you.
No one has any sympathy for whom they perceive to be "out of fashion".
They say "You are not persecuted,
You are weak-minded, lost.
Your suffering shows you have cast your lot with the wrong side.
We are not bullies,
We are trying to help you."
And if you scream beneath the pressure,
Cry out from the bite of the vice they foist on you,
They will laugh
because they think you are too stupid
Too stubborn to see what they see,
A fool among the enlightened.
Just as you, my dear, saw me
Once upon a time
In your garden.
There's no use denying it.
I love you no less for your dismissal,
For it was but the initial reaction of your base instinct
To shy away from me.
When we got to know each other better
And I shed my serpent skin
You touched my palm to yours
Uncertain love like a flower pressed between the pages
Of our lives, so far apart
As to inspire misery.
But I took that flower, and bid it bloom
Red like bloody wine straight from the vine
Or roses on the bush you tend
In your paradise.
My dear, I was Adam in your clay
Dust to rust, we died our little deaths
Like one who had just lost a bet.
When your pride stoppered your abundant affection
And my cup ceased to runneth over
Did I strike back?
No, though
My rib was cracked by your shotgun blast.
And in the hospital bed, white as angel's robes,
You laid beside me the fruit of the tree
The proof your womb was no tomb
No postmodern tophets here.