By Joshua Louw

I approached your palace many times
Though towers of high tranquility
Could never breach those ancient stones
Preserving your love's intensity.
Within those intricate marble halls
You keep your private pale possessions
Content, secure from male obsessions
Though some have scaled those frosted walls.
And I, most timid, have touched your soul
In the hours it enters that desolate space
Where I reside, to share the cold
Pervading my futile stillborn grace.
Behind your eyes lies more than friendship
But less than love in a stolen grip--
In kindness my mind has always known
The whispered intentions you might have shown;
For once I entered your placid slumber
Beyond the fortress desire maintains
And there discovered years beyond number
Where moments hide in the ruins that remain.
I left the darkness, my cage of night,
To enter your sleep and the mind's library
And recovered one instant of true serenity;
One moment of light
Where you might have loved me.

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