Oswald's Lament by Alp Mortal
“Dumah;
My heart yearns for him as moth craves flame.
The night, so lonely now,
leaves me vanquished and broken 'til dawn.
I pluck a memory from the air like a petal from the bloom of peony perfection and hold it ‘gainst my breast.
Imbibed of a sorrowful winter’s hoary breath, my heart is rapacious cold.
Hell would be my preferred reality.
Eschewing reason, embracing insanity; t’was no choice exercised of free will.
Love is no more certain than where the smithy’s hammer falls.
Love; the planished surface of a medicine bowl. Every dimple, evidence of the craft; not so blind; not so random. I am well; love makes me sick.
The smithy is no fool; he does not strike his thumb, does he? Not he, adorned by blood blisters and contusions of hopeless fools.
Cannot be true that love was so barren that I taste only ash; I remember the thunder roll between our thighs; a refuge from confusing rain.
Our love was bold; red like the wound. Our love was wise; sagacious as plums that ripen only in the act of picking, else held in stasis ‘til observed.
Our love was delectable, like scent floating in the breeze.
Our love was fervid; a naked prophet, possessed and revered.
We, but acolytes of beauteous truth; seekers not yet believers; pedestrians and passengers; mere spawn; embryonic demons with one horn. Unformed fruit; a question mark for a cock.
Love him? I did; swear it was true. Worms may eat my brain but thought is undiminished and emotions hunger for marrow; I swell in servitude of the gift.
The deserving man craves the least; the undeserving man, the most; I, now, the fulcrum of the scales; craving more makes me ugly; desiring less, angelic.
Goodbye sweet, rotten flux; momentary delusion; eternal, infernal and carnal; my chalice will never be full.
Dumah! I love you.
Adieu.
My heart yearns for him as moth craves flame.
The night, so lonely now,
leaves me vanquished and broken 'til dawn.
I pluck a memory from the air like a petal from the bloom of peony perfection and hold it ‘gainst my breast.
Imbibed of a sorrowful winter’s hoary breath, my heart is rapacious cold.
Hell would be my preferred reality.
Eschewing reason, embracing insanity; t’was no choice exercised of free will.
Love is no more certain than where the smithy’s hammer falls.
Love; the planished surface of a medicine bowl. Every dimple, evidence of the craft; not so blind; not so random. I am well; love makes me sick.
The smithy is no fool; he does not strike his thumb, does he? Not he, adorned by blood blisters and contusions of hopeless fools.
Cannot be true that love was so barren that I taste only ash; I remember the thunder roll between our thighs; a refuge from confusing rain.
Our love was bold; red like the wound. Our love was wise; sagacious as plums that ripen only in the act of picking, else held in stasis ‘til observed.
Our love was delectable, like scent floating in the breeze.
Our love was fervid; a naked prophet, possessed and revered.
We, but acolytes of beauteous truth; seekers not yet believers; pedestrians and passengers; mere spawn; embryonic demons with one horn. Unformed fruit; a question mark for a cock.
Love him? I did; swear it was true. Worms may eat my brain but thought is undiminished and emotions hunger for marrow; I swell in servitude of the gift.
The deserving man craves the least; the undeserving man, the most; I, now, the fulcrum of the scales; craving more makes me ugly; desiring less, angelic.
Goodbye sweet, rotten flux; momentary delusion; eternal, infernal and carnal; my chalice will never be full.
Dumah! I love you.
Adieu.
