A Letter to Emily and Edgar
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant—”
So you whispered, Emily, through shrouded lace,
while your pen carved light into Amherst shadows.
But truth, even slant, can cut,
and not all knives find a hand to hone them.
And Edgar, my storm-eyed specter,
you swore the raven perched forevermore,
yet wings were made to fold and unfurl.
Did you fear that flight might swallow the silence
you wrapped so tightly ‘round your grief?
My favorite ghosts,
you haunt the margins of my every page,
seeding madness and beauty alike.
I feel your breath in my pauses,
your rhythm in my pulse.
But hear me now, across time’s chasm:
Emily, do not let death
linger so long in your upstairs room;
it waits without invitation,
and there is more to touch
than the cold marble of eternity.
Edgar, pour less absinthe
into the heart’s well;
the dark can nourish—but too much,
and it drowns the brightest ink.
There is still more than ravens and reapers,
more than closed doors and lonely windows.
Have you heard of stars dancing?
Or love that burns not in torment,
but in the quiet constellations of shared breath?
You taught me to speak with shadows,
but I long to see you reach toward light.
Would your lines stretch thinner,
or your stanzas bloom brighter
with a flicker of sunlit hope?
Forever yours,
Bound in your tangled strings,
Yet free enough to ask:
Could we both try something softer,
and let it still be true?
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