Dying of Old Age

We covered it like secret fear,
Pranced and hid in the now and here;
Children giggling in a static maze,
Dancing through the twilight haze.
Under our fear of responsibility and impurity,
We harbored hatred for maturity:
Divided sympathies, diluted resolve.
We struggled to stay uninvolved,
But Father Time kissed our eyes.
Were our truths or our lies
Most bitter? I cannot remember.
In our tantrums we torched the timber
Of the pretty words we shared.
We poisoned ourselves, and dared
Each other to drain the drought
Starving our passion, feeding our doubts,
And aging us against our will.
How I loved you still,
All Roman marble, a chiseled face,
Pale skin carved in immobile grace,
Until you burst into flame again.
We couldn’t both burn the same then,
Or all would be consumed.
With murderous hands, I suppressed the bloom.
I buried our secret to the depths inside,
Pretended I’d grown and watched it die.
I feigned forgetfulness, aversion, apathy.
With intensity you fought for my honesty,
Pleading and shaking, tremors of breath,
But I was committed to the death.
Our common words took opposing inflections.
We ran our maze in opposite directions.
While in a grave unknown, I carried our bones,
The secret that kept me safe, alone.