Pen and Cob

fog obscured my vision as I rode up towards fate.
a restless little town;
not quite awake,
not quite asleep.
just whispering lines
from the poet before me.

it was quaint and ideal for raising a family,
but my own did not want me,
so what a silly girl I am for wanting my own.
and with whom?
I fear I know the answer.

the manor itself was stately
and held together only by portraits
that lined each wall -
portraits of Counts with notable scowls.
they would cling to arsenic green wallpaper
and link their faux gold frames
against each other.

I was a nomad myself,
I never settled, but took a typewriter
with me wherever I went.
this manor became my muse -
the watcher visited me every night.

from my room on the second story,
down the hall and to the left,
I would hear him play piano.
sometimes just for me...
jeux d'eau?

he'd leave trails of wild rose petals on the balcony,
he'd plant spider lilies in the garden.

then one evening, the music stopped,
and it broke my China heart -
shattered it until fragments of a wasted life
spilled out from my mouth.

my hands shook and quivered against the keys,
how did they get there?
if not for him, then for no one at all.

of that I was certain,
and I'll never be as certain as I was then,
yet never so diluted.

being the nomadic, discombobulated,
manic girl I was,
I burnt the manor to the ground
and left the poet's soul in ashes.

it's been years since I've thought of him,
and maybe that's why I struggle
to remember my place of origin.
my soul died with his, as it was meant to.

though, I'm sure,
that like the phoenix,
from the ashes
we will rise again.