"You don't question what you believe, but I must."How far we have come from March 415!They won't stone us or burn us at the stake now,Flay our skin with broken bits of pottery.That was over a hundred years ago. No wait, fifty --Or was it perhaps twenty?Definitely at least ten years ago.Or was it two?Doesn't matter. Time is of no consequence.It is not for you.Today's special is slut-shamingBold red on the multi cuisine menu.It was much in demand yesterday too.Yesterday's special was slut-shaming -It's an everyday specialLeast expensive meal on the tattered, dog-eared menu.
I will remove all memories of youBurn the cruel pictures, every one.Seeing you locked in a frozen imageRemembering youRemembering your momentRemembering and realizingThere could never have been another.Thin lacerations like fine brush-strokesFrom another lifetimeFast disappearing from my naked wristsAre the last of your claim.The world too full of feral maliceAnd you, loved enough not to knowYou who have left as quietly as you cameYour kind leaves long before we doHealing and bruising
Little shadows, little shadowsDancing on the chamber wall,While I sit beside the hearthstoneWhere the red flames rise and fall.Caps and nightgowns, caps and nightgowns,My three antic shadows wear;And no sound they make in playing,For the six small feet are bare.Dancing gayly, dancing gayly,To and fro all together,Like a family of daisiesBlown about in windy weather;Nimble fairies, nimble fairies,Playing pranks in the warm glow,While I sing the nursery dittiesChildish phantoms love and know.
Believe me, this was true last night,Tho' it is false to-day.-- A.M.F. Robinson.A fair dream to my chamber flew:Such a crowd of folk that stirred,Jested, fluttered; only you,You alone of all that band,Calm and silent, spake no word.Only once you neared my place,And your hand one moment's spaceSought the fingers of my hand;Your eyes flashed to mine; I knewAll was well between us two.On from dream to dream I past,But the first sweet vision castMystic radiance o'er the last.