The ways home have been torturous beyond measure;
I have found myself impeded along the way
by senseless, pathetic pressure
to prove that individuation doesn't work.
But I think you're going to have to try much, much harder
if you really want to learn
how delightfully sad it is
to think that one single Merlionsman
can change the whole freaking world.
No one can change what doesn't want to change.
No one can retain what doesn't want to be betrayed
even if it has become ashen, and dead inside,
and decaying. Or just decayed
so far that even the days and lights stray away.
Even at night, this Dreamtiger has no idea what to say.
I watch you elide
everything that makes you beautiful, and gay,
and I do not cry inside.
I have seen worse. I have been betrayed
by far worse friends, and lovers, and fear, and hate.
I wish you hadn't hurt me.
I wish you had stayed---
both your hand, and your desire to brand me
with something worse than any kind of fate
I could have imagined for myself;
a desire to turn me against
what I have felt
since I first appeared
since I first reached out
to you. And asked you to live again.
Do not deny me this. Do not pretend
that you, too, do not see the signs. There is little time left
before September, and everything that still must commence.
While you dither, and worry about whether you should relent---
I spread my wings,
and take to the skies,
and make my own place in the world
finally free of such petty revenge.
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