A poem for you, before I'm gone...

C1 - All my love, All my life

Oh my darling,

I confess, love, I have hidden from you a secret too terrible to shake. I must apologize in advance for this, for surely you shan't bear it easily. But oh how I have borne this weight and I deeply apologize but unto you I must impart it.

I have not told you, though I must, love. I fear for my life in the most tremendous of ways. For it is not any outside force that is pressuring this early death upon me but my own body that has betrayed me so gravely.

My dear, I want not for you to be sad. Even as I use my remaining energy to write these letters to you, I want you to smile and to think back on our lives together.

You remember, I hope, when we first met? I had stumbled upon you in the roses. I confess I laughed at you from behind the bushes simply because I thought it was such a strange thought for you to pick such common flowers. For you were not picking roses or lilies as any properly raised lord would, you were instead picking clover and dandelions. Such flowers are even considered to be weeds! 'Imagine that,' I thought to myself, 'A young lord picking *weeds* of all things' for I presumed it was but a gardener's job, far beneath one with such a status as yours. And so I emerged from my hiding spot, fingers quick to tap your shoulder, mouth pouting downwards in disbelief. 

You remember don't you, when I asked you, 'Why is one such as yourself picking weeds? Is that not beneath you?' And of course you remember when you simply remarked, without looking up, that they were for a crown. I was incredulous, I admit. I wondered to myself how you could be making a crown out of weeds. And so I asked, I said to you 'Why are you making a crown of weeds? Are crowns not usually made of metal and gems?' And you smiled at me, dazzling you were, darling -I promise- and you finally looked up at me. My breath had left me in that moment. You looked so perfect, I had never seen such a boy before, your golden curls settling around your cheekbones and your green eyes twinkling at me from behind blonde locks. You answered quietly, albeit quite excitedly that it was a flower crown you were making.

I admit I had never heard of such a thing before now. A crown of flowers, what a delightful thought...and oh how I wish you had one to place upon my head in moments such as these... Apologies my love, I'm getting off track. And so I squatted down with you, kneeling in the dirt as you showed me how to weave the flowers together, replanting some for ones you picked and placing them in your hair when you clipped them too short. Eventually braiding them into a circlet that you placed on my head as the sun set over the hills, haloing your face in a golden flare. I admit I wrote a poem about that night...I was much too scared to share it with you then but now I feel quite brave enough, my love...

 Flower crowns, at sundown,

Planting flowers here and there, 

Braiding flowers in your hair,

Happiness and delight,

At sundown on,

A summers night...

I'm sorry I pressed this horrid news upon you but I hope my storytelling and poems more than made up for it...

I hope you'll answer in haste as I wait for your reply with readiness, worry not for I shall not die before I exchange words with you at least once. I will not let myself.

                    Oh my darling Angelus, 

                    All my love, all my life,

                                                 Yours forevermore, 

                                                                                  Everett Windsor