Lonely Hearts Chapel

Miss Lonelyhearts and the Shrike, pt. 2

I’m the closest I’ve ever been to you, my shrike angel,
but I must circle to the stairs backstage
because the stage you dance upon is my height sevenfold;
I pray you’ll keep me in mind while I part from your sight.

With a slow, dreamlike urgency
I’m on the stage and you are dead;
no more magic dancing flight, only stillness.
I don’t cry
because you’re in my arms
and we’re as close as we’ve always been.

What-you-used-to-be spills onto me;
feathers stick to my boring flesh
and certainty becomes my soul.
With your sticking, colorless death
I trace our shapes onto the stage,
entwined in dance.

Your death seeps into me,
taking me away from myself
before my drawing is complete.
I fall into my work
and know I did enough.

Whoever finds us there
in death and art
will know that we thought
we knew what love was,
that you were sure
your dancing would bring me onstage,
that I was sure
we were dancing together the whole time
and my art would make it true forever.

Whoever finds our bodies
may not call it love,
but they will understand
the creative unselfish effort,
and they will wonder
if it really conjured immortality;
but a piece of them will be absolutely sure.

Reborn;
rushing fills nothingness
and there you are, as always,
the color of light streaming through
a fluttering eyelid.

My most intense romantic entanglement moved me to write these words, even all these years later.

Love always,

Miss L.