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'tis Not Ophelia

My Lord, you dance between two Queens, confused a mourning martyr and a morning dove both cleaved of hope, of thought, of voice, or so the multiples of men would think. But I'm no less the babe, no more the witch than what imaginings might trace your mind I've overflown the mold you've cast me in and altered all the fashions you've designed. I've sinned, excusing flows of sinfulness inscribing them in heart as boons of love but, ah, the blade you've burried in my chest I cannot wrest from in my vengeful bones. I would exact a justice for his death with your companion Madness in my soul. 'Tis you or I will die, but I can't live to trip o'er bodies in my shadow's fall and find you there, the face upon my heart with your obsessions bleeding black at foot. I could forever sponge the poison spewed so long as lips of Hamlet smiled on me. 'Tis life of victim-hood I could endure but I can't make a victim out of you. 'Tis not Ophelia, "sweets to the sweet" there, not 'neath the feet of unlovables loved. I dwell in hamlets between Life and Death, companioned by a Hamlet's, earthbound vice because I loved a Hamlet; madness sworn a man romanced by madmens victory. 'Tis not Ophelia, drown in bitter pain but mine own madness quelled, a victim claimed.

Copyright © | Year Posted 2009




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Book: Shattered Sighs