To Love Me Is To Suffer Me

- Rift: Part I - Poem XIV -

I wrote your name in morning steam,

Afraid the glass will clear too fast

You’re stitched into my every dream,

Yet, like you, they never last

They say new love might ease your sting,

But no one tells you what it costs

Each kiss feels like a borrowed thing,

A monument to what I’ve lost

I measure smiles in shades of you,

Your laugh echoes in my halls

It holds me close, I pull it right through,

Because you never held me like you were afraid to fall

You saw me bright, but kept me dim,

Too much for you to understand

I bled for your love, limb after limb,

While you reached for a cleaner hand

I fear forgetting every line,

The crinkle of your winter coat

Your hand once tethered to mine,

Now silence clings to every note

But even ghosts can lose their grip,

And truth cuts softer than regret

You drank me down in every sip,

But never loved me past the threat

To love me is to suffer me,

That’s how you made me feel

But love should never beg to be,

Or lose itself to help you heal

And there’s this guy who has your eyes,

He doesn’t make me feel so small

Your shadow still looms, though, it’s here,

But it won’t always be at all

Maybe there’s a dawn past what we were,

Though I once thought you’d be the end

You taught me pain, but not how to endure,

So now I choose someone who’s able to bend

I’ll carry you like ancient texts,

Unread, but sacred to my chest

But may you, or the one who finds me next,

Know how to love me and the rest