Title:A Letter to My Beloved
Key: the Matchmaker Key (a Violet Key side story)
Author: newtypeshadow

Notes: A Key is a male sex slave held in captivity. For more about Keys, see the link on my profile page. This poem was inspired by Ezra Pound's "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter," which in turn was an imitation of a poem by Li-Po (AD 701-762).

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When I was a child
My mother tied a red cord around my wrist
And bells around my ankles.
She wrapped me in silk,
Sleeves trailing after my short legs
As I ran to play with other children
And was caught up in her arms
And told to stay.

When I was a child
I saw the thread around my finger,
Red as sun cutting through night.
I looked for you:
The man whom I was bound to
By the very blood in my veins.

Then I turned fourteen.

An old man came to our village.
His carriage stopped outside our door.
My mother saw his face from the window
And she said, “It is time.”
She pulled me to her, wetting my cheeks with her tears.
She gave the man my hand.

I was innocent when we crossed the mountains.
The carriage knocked our knees together.
Dust and sun stuck to the curtains.
I asked where we were going and
The old man told me: “Home.”

Home was a palace, white and gold,
A long paved path lined with wisteria and rose.
We entered through the servant’s door
And twisted down serpentine halls
Until I was bewildered.

I was innocent when we stepped through
The thick black door that slammed and locked.
His hands closed into gnarled fists
And fell like bamboo canes on my soft back.
“If you do not learn to serve,” he said,
Then you will die.”

And so I turned fifteen.

I had aged when the old man left,
A jaded thing with ancient eyes.
They dressed me like a China doll and locked me in a room.
The first man came and I knelt for him,
Eyes fixed on future years and dust.
The second man came and the third and fourth
And filled my soul with emptiness.
I gazed out the window at the path below
And wished that I could fall into the earth.

I was dead when my savior came,
An empty shell enclosed in silk.
He shared my bed but not my body,
Shared my meals but not my lips,
Shared his mind and fears and joys,
And in the end, I shared with him my heart and broken soul.

He stayed with me through winter snows
And held me though my tears were dry,
And when he left
I gave a parting gift:

I traced the red thread on his finger,
A stream fast-flowing toward his future.
I told him where he could find the happiness he sought.

They found out soon, my captors,
About my parting gift.
They gave me a bigger room that looked over a garden.
They gave me a new name and new clientele.
They said, “Help these men find happiness,
And when your debt is paid
We will help you find your own.”

Alive again, I bide my time—
There are years yet I will remain—
But when I am sad,
And the trees in the garden are bare and gray,
I trace the thread tied to my finger
To your hand across the ocean,
And to your face, which soothes my lonely soul.