How can I ever let you sully your hands over something that thrives on phantasm? The smoke burns my foresight, yet the mirror reflects a Quasimodo with a flower in hand, as Esmeralda waltzes a breeze from a summer I never felt I know I am only shooting myself in the foot, fingers crossed, praying the will-o’-the-wisp is worth the crutches dragging me deeper into a sulphuric cascade that leads nowhere. Hoping every gaze toward you is worth the currency of my longing When has Morgan le Fay ever claimed the lion’s share a kingdom of your heart? I stand, wobbling on tiptoes, just to glimpse through weak blinders as geysers of melancholia leak, and you rush to bury them in sand. Here unarmed, unwelcome I keep a cinematic still of your kingdom, etched in memory down to the humble north wing, which to me is a hidden jewel amongst plastic And when the path appears predestined, lined with thorns the gallows a mere feet away You garbed in executors velvet black my ashen face reflects on your axe I understand: it is the only answer you have for me. So I remove myself before you can do it yourself