Dear Muse,

I missed you these past few days,
Counting the wax and wane of each moon
Before folding the next, preying
On the life of that caged kitten—
The origami both frozen and fluid,
Dim and lurid, the paradox of longing
And lost. You left me alone,

Past tense.

The edges of the ice, keen, sink
Into my veins, searing with each thump,
Branding me with perpetual proof.
Their burns heal slowly but steadily
And with white-hot pain the Band-Aid rips,
Wound raw, blood staunched, scab
Fusing the skin and the freshly-formed flesh

So soon—

For the trees were too deep to be rooted,
The leaves teared up when torn,
The fruitless branches, sapless bark,
Cried “please, just a little while longer”;
Before they went up ablaze. The sun
Ignited the fraud of a forest, finally,
And the December snow softens.

And after this,

Muse, oh, my marvellous Muse,
You’ll be mine no more.
You’ll be you, stripped of all the chains
And lockets with which I’ve adorned you,
Muse, bound no more by the yoke
Of my fabrication. But even if so,
Muse, in me your name is tattooed,

Eternally.

Love,