The Gift

When you gave me the moon

I couldn’t help but look away—

The blinding white seared

My swiftly brimming eyes

The worn flesh of my yearning hands sizzled.

My being was eclipsed by its sheer expanse—

Nothing but a pained dot,

Bathed in its magnificence.

It was a gift too great to bear—

But you tethered it at my feet

With silver strings,

Uttering silver words

That held me aloft like silver wings,

Without which I would have surely sunk 

All too slowly beneath the moon soaked ground.

But when you left me with the moon

You took its warmth with you.

I long for the days 

It would lovingly melt my waning skin,

And set my dreams of love ablaze.

But I wish I hadn’t stood so close—

For it burnt mirroring craters 

Into my fragile heart.

The light it emanates now is cold and cruel;

Lurid beams plunge into the voids of my soul 

And become them,

To eternally freeze love’s old wounds in place.

I wish you had gently placed the moon 

On my meagre form before departing—

So I may be crushed to utter oblivion 

By what I loved most dearly.