TRAGIC Poem: elegy, by Emma Conlon

you wrote songs to our love. I was your golden one,
a muse, an angel. I floated down from heaven,
landed tip-toed, en pointe atop my marble pedestal.

I still remember
the rough edges of your voice,
the soul of it beaming through,
cinnamon simmering alto, smooth
for all its ridges.

you penned novels of this love. within their pages,
we lived a different life, far off in the distant future,
the place where I live now, without you.

maybe we lived in
a new york city brownstone,
a european villa, an island
paradise, though paradise was wherever
we found ourselves
together.

you breathed poetry for our love. each token was
a metaphor, each stolen moment a verse, each love
letter a dreamy ode to our shakespearean tragedy.

I have burned so many things—
I burned the letters.
it didn’t feel right
to throw them in the trash.
the strange ritualism of it,
the legacy of destruction
of the generations
we do our part in compounding.

in another universe, you are still writing me songs.
I am still writing you poetry. maybe you have a better
relationship with your parents. maybe we’ve both
given up drinking. or maybe I’ve forgiven myself,
forgiven you.
our midnight sighs could make me dizzy, still giddy
with the resplendence of the shiny & new.
we do not lie to each other anymore.

the songs would still be for me
instead of about me.
the stories still ours,
not spun & stretched
for the ears of a stranger.
instead,

the only one still writing the stupid poetry is me.