Special: For you, Ryan

Once,
you were everything to me.

Your eyes were soft
your voice sincere
your hands were warmer than mine were
and I loved you.

Your promises were made in haste
to bring to me a smile
when I sat on the bus to race home
I'd think of your words and ignore the leering.

You kept me alive.
You were everything.
My world was alive.

I did not want to live
not outside the Roses
and the magic there
the love and respect I had there
just for being myself.

It is intoxicating.

More than I can ever know,
that is your set of wishes now,
My King, my Lord, my Cruelty.

You gave away my Everything
with nary then a glance.

When I knew you next
the boy I loved, I knew, was gone
and you were there instead.

You, with the blue coat baring my seal
You, with the wine glass in your hand
You, with the smile that melted me
You, with the voice that closes my eyes.

For all the harm that you have done
for all the power you are now
for all the nobility roused to your passions
I will never forget who you were.

I will always love you, Azrael.
My poor and lilting angel
I remember your voice
before it was magic, before all of this
all the pain I fear to write of
is forgiven

because I, and I alone
remember you.

Your harm
is the shield, the armor, the graves
the words and the speeches, blushing parlor maids
when I saw you last you ripped pearls from my
silvered hair,
laughing

and I thought
of the day with the grim sunlight
in the bleak halls
the horror story onto love
when you told me you loved me
when you told me I was everything
when you told me I was yours
when you looked me in the face
and lied to me,

so you could die.

The first day you met me
and knew who I was,
my precious heathen King.

And you died.

You died to harm me
you died to maim my shattered heart
you collected my soul in bottles
and used it to unbalance me.

You have injured me
more ways than any other man
woman
creature
anyone and anything
so many tears against your pain.

I blame myself.

You know that, don't you?

I blame myself
for picking you up off the ground, dusting you
teaching you blade and sharper-edged words
teaching you elvish to touch on my ears
teaching what I knew and how to use it
teaching all you'd ever want to hear

teaching myself
that you'd be happier

and now I know
that I was right.

Your happiness is a poison,
my sweet, my gentle "paramour"
it wraps around me like a false hope and rings my eyes
bleeds my neck and naked shoulders
as I wreathe in the memories
of the days when we were enemies.

You rise your way to power
on the wings of my favor
well damn your shattered heart,
you desperate plighted thing
these are my wings
this is my soul
these are my eyes for seeing
and I do not look your way.

I test you now, more thoroughly than I tested
your father
your uncle
our "parents"
I test you completely, I dare and I challenge:

Leave me.
Leave my world.
Rise the dawn, possess the day
and leave your velvet in your coffin
sip some coffee, take your riches
and leave my people safe from you.

Leave the many women
women who feel like I do
women who look nothing like me
with alienated faces
with princess-thin waists
with jaw-dropping voices
and caress-worthy hips

you leave them
you be what you are, what you always will be:
human
or dying
gold
or beaten rock

Else, this time I will not forgive you
for you have damaged me in a way I cannot name to you
you have taken my rights for love, Lord Azrael
you've taken my pulse and my breath and my people.

When I saw her eyes
glistening with sacred tearsf
when I felt her heart
felt that she'd protect for me
she, the human,
like the ones you have so long neglected
loved me more in a single instant
than you have in an immortal life.

She is stronger, braver than
a thousand of your dark-Rose men
too cowardly to fight alone
the ones that you employ
as I recall
laying with my lacey gown
upon the floor of your revels
and screaming.

The world around us may laugh
the human world may scoff or mock
but you and I, the human too, we know the truth and all of it
and I will not allow you
to harm me if she does not will it.

Take my challenge or I fight you
take my challenge or I defend
take my challenge or I find
a reason to further an indefinite end.

Let my banishment be mercy
let you remember your wit and your skills
outside the circles of the things that mortal men will never know
employ their talents
seize your future
seize your soul.

If you ever loved me
if you ever shed the tears I shared with you,
shared on your human lips, my Lord
if you ever felt the magic in my glances
heard the silver in my laugh
then leave my broken heart at peace
and through your life do make amends.

If you ever loved me
even as half as much as I do you?

Leave
and see I'm right
Leave
and learn what I meant you to.