My Arthur and Me

I was too young I think,

To understand the world.

The complexities,

Intricacies,

Of life and of love.

The intimacies that follow you,

Through one door and out a window.

You cannot live without them,

Yet you pray for release,

As is human nature to do,

When they are pressing.

And when they’re gone,

To take your own life,

In their pursuit.

Where did the love go?

I know it was there,

I felt it that day,

Warm sunshine,

And flowers in my auburn hair.

For the rest of my life,

No other would be,

Just he and I,

My Arthur and me.

But time marches on,

It catches up to the best of us.

He was tall and proud,

Stronger than any of them

The age did not bend him like the others,

He only grew whiter.

The love cradled us and kept us warm,

Kept us loyal and true,

Even when Lancelot first knocked on my door,

But I could not ignore him forever.

The masks fell away,

And Arthur had to fight his war,

Search for his grail.

He was gone for so long.

So very long.

So Lancelot came to me again.

For the rest of my life,

No other would be.

Lancelot and I,

My Arthur and me.

The fleeting intimacy that caused our downfall,

The doom of the table,

And the end of the Britain we had raised.

She was a bride now,

And like a father,

Arthur walked her down the isle,

To give her away to another.

Not by choice,

It’s never by choice.

It was my fault,

And Lancelot’s foolish courage.

I would he had burned me.

But the bastard boy,

(Who haunted my nightmares)

Took that choice from me,

Then took my king from me.

And left me in the convent,

With the old knowledge of good,

And of evil.

Still,

For the rest of my life

No other would be

My God and I,

My Arthur and me.