...Infidel I...

Told R what I thought when he asked me for my opinion, fighting back the cloying, whimpering need to tell him what he obviously wanted to hear instead. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. When I'm honest with him, it never is. I can't decide whether I'm being a good friend or a bad bulwark or if I'm just so tangled up by emotion that I'm doing the wrong thing at every turn. It hurts me to see him hurting, and it twists the knife to know that there is nothing I can do. I have to walk a fine line somewhere between honesty and evasion, one I'm not so good at walking - and when I slip, he's not the only one who gets hurt. I'm crying because he's crying because I told him what I honestly thought. I'm crying because he's crying because he got his hopes up and I had to be the one to poke a hole in them. I'm crying because no matter how much I love him, I'm unwilling, and unable to ignore his faults and his mistakes and the blind-eyed determination with which he clings to anything. I'm crying because I'm caught up in the inevitability of the tapestry he weaves, because I can no more turn away from him than stop breathing, because there are some people in this world who occupy - whether they want it or not - a tiny and indelible piece of my mind and my heart and my soul, people who have the ability to hurt me and heal me like no other. They're the people I don't have to make up symbols for in my poetry, the people who have always simply been who they were, waiting to step into the images that were created before I even met them. I don't know when he took up residence with them. I don't know how things would have or could have turned out differently. I know only that there is a battered and battle-weary knight who has haunted my words for a long many years without name or face before him, and that the midnight-tressed maiden who welcomes him in carries a blade of betrayal in her hair and no respite in her promising arms. And she - the raven - all may love her, and despair. Should I bite my tongue and tell him what he wants to hear? I fight this battle with every question, every comment, every word he says some days. And some days, he berates me for not doing precisely that, for not contradicting my own heart. And some days he thanks me for telling him the truth. And some days I don't have to struggle and fight, and I remember why I love him like I do. But what do I do with the rest of them?

Take out your weapon,
             draw arms against the night.
       your wonder will protect you,
                        so they say.

                 Dragons fume flame
in blatant fury,
              your armour reflects it.
     A holy sword
                       was made for these things.
         Draw arms and bear armour
against the night.

                    There is a maiden in this castle,
Her eyes are strange,
                          with candles in them.
        She wears robes of friendship and comfort,
                 weary warrior,
                              and she carries balm
for the dragon's wounds.

             Ware yourself, and the traitorous maiden.
       Swords were not meant
                                  for this insidious war.
She is garbed in friendship,
                   offers comfort with candlelit eyes.
           There is a blade bound
                         into her midnight hair.

Resting your sword aside,
              the moment calls for quiet,
      your armour loose and light,
                    your weapons down.
     The dragon does not threaten
                               for the moment,
Your wounds are soothed and healed.

              She carries balms of comfort,
        robed in friendship and trust,
                                   Seeks to draw your armour aside.
Do not trust her,
                  nor the blade bound in her eyes.
              She loves the dragon, 
                         and her master cannot bear
    to bind her.
           Yet still he knows 
the dragon can seduce her,
                        her of the blade hidden
  in her midnight hair.

                 Take arms, o warrior!
She will destroy you.
                           See, she cannot wait
       to drive her blade
                        into your heart.
Do not love her,
          her master bears scars
                                you cannot comprehend.

          Take arms, o paladin,
take up your holy sword!
                        She bears a dagger
    in her welcoming eyes,
              marked
                  with the dragon's name.
          NsK 21-09-2000
                         "Galahad"