louise mckenzie records

for you

my lost love

i waited 

waited for you

to forsake the glory of troy

and come home to greece

your hunger led you 

to the killing fields

where you fought 

for the survival 

of your wounds 

i could not grasp your

in my opinion

wanton desires

to overcome insignificance

through methods that require from you

cessation of existence

---

on unusual and changing sands

i was being brutally cast out

down to tartarus

doomed to be tortured 

by the transfigural flames 

brought on by

my desires and tempestuous nature

the disease of shame

and the curse of innocence

the fates perplexed by my apathy

accompanied by a deep starvation

a rare and deathly union

they granted me no guarantee of 

resurrection

i attempted to win the fates

by proving i was beyond my years

but they ordered me instead

deeper into the earths crust

to count the bodies

sort remains

and shovel ash

it would not be a swift journey

but an arduous one

back to the land of the living

the fates would not accept

anything less than

φρόνησῐς and ἀρετή 

wholeness would be required of me

and for the first time

i could no longer

be allowed to survive

if I could not let myself

be found

---

meanwhile

you arrived to troy

but on some precipice

you faltered

dropped the shield

escaped the phalanx

pushed another warriors

boat down the sandy hill

and back into the aegean sea

you had taken heed of eastern winds

sensing that I was very lost

more than simply set adrift

but instead buried under rubble

you arrived at ithaca

to be greeted by

an unlocked door

but an empty home

our bedroom

now a cobwebbed sanctum

where we worshipped

prayed

and served

you called my name

it echoed unto eros

but I was deaf to your plea

being below you among the dead

you had forsaken the glory of troy

and learned

what many great men

who you so admire

do not 

those men who only

love their wives

in dressing rooms

and after childbirth

---

i write this ode

to our most star-crossed designs

that exist on this timeline

i send it adrift

i know not where

toward you i hope

you must have faith

you did not abandon κλέος

for the void

you only missed me 

on the day of my arrest

you loved me 

as i owed many unknown and unpaid debts

and just as the battle at troy

began long after you had become

an amorous deserter

my lost love

find solace in the knowing

that you have always been

nothing less to me

than mere moments

too early