My world died as I felt you remove yourself.

My heart was torn from my body,

By a rusty teaspoon of broken promise and unfulfilled want.

The world was no longer for me,

Just for those lucky enough to still have a soul.

My spirit whisked onto the funeral pyre of futility,

Thinking that this vacuum would be my sole habitat forever.

I never saw it coming. I was as blind as Sulla, 

Wrapped in my coat of ignorance and false sense of immortality. 

I thought we would be eternal,

Like the works of Austen, forever romantic,

Like the Dionysian rites, an eternal abandonment of carnality, 

Like Oxford university a non-aging discovery of esoteric wisdom, 

Whimsical and lyrical like a drunken bard. 

Your journey however took a path apart and our world lost its gravity.

I could see you, but not reach for you,

Like Orpheus and Euridice.

An exercise in hopelessness.

The further you seemed, the faster you appeared to run.

Leaving my night to creep and enfold me in her dark silk shroud.

But, when the bleakness was at her most resolute,

When all light had been extinguished, 

And I thought that my soul would travel that sweet path,

To an eternal death that was too good for the likes of me,

You returned as a phoenix.

You shone from the other side of the broken bridge,

Luminous in your beauty,

Showing me that some beams were still intact,

That there was some weakened foothold back to the light.

I trod them carefully,

Each step back to you stronger than the one before.

Your words like a siren call in the void, 

Tantalising, remorseful, beautiful like a malloric tale.

I felt my resolution to stay away and keep some pride,

Crumble as a dried butterfly wing.

Your complication more lucid as I approached, 

Your grace enfolding me with her warming cloak.

You spoke of forgiveness, paths forward, reasons why we should not be apart 

And my heart was humbled,

Knowing that even though I must walk sometimes alone,

Even though on occasion we must be on opposite sides of this chasm,

You will always be there, flickering as a candle,

Guiding and comforting as my lantern in the dark.