It is such tragedy to be writing a preface for a glorified suicide note, although, it’s not so much a note, nor a memo, nor a mission statement. Yet here I find myself wandering through frames of a mind that was tortured, by what I dare not reveal for it tears me so. My heart lurches as these frantic words complete their poignant enactment of despair. It is a recollection, the tale of the union of loss, love, and suffering. The last stab at the heteroclitic betrayal, which forced the undoing of sanity. Shame for the reverie that inspired the tale surely would have made for something breathtaking, if only; if only she wasn’t filled with doubts, of an arcane romance. Why couldn't the monstrosity have remained shrouded? Never have come to light, never have plunged its misery into their hearts. Embraced in combat once, and now loathed are the results. They could’ve been remembered as celestial beings, heroes, Shakespeare’s Roméo et Juliet, alas Death wooed our paladin in the time of his suffering. Allowing him only enough fortitude to tell his tale to the lonely keys on this very typewriter, before conceding his struggle to the night. I bear this task as the keeper of the injustice, as my penance, in hopes of forgiveness, of mercy, to right the wrong that was born from these hands. This injustice bore by our paladin upon naught his shoulders, rather his heart. His tale begins.

The keys of my Underwood show the dust they have collected for months; a badge of sorrow, that tells of the tenebrous occurrences without the words being spoken. The keys silenced by the veil of death, which gripped my heart in a gelid hold that could not be broken, until now. The anguish has consumed my every fiber, and there’s a point where it can’t get any worse. Now is the time to rise and weave the tale. I move to the T and feel its resistance, bewitched by the necromancy of age. With eyes closed, and heart open images fly from the sub conscious, the cadence returns to my fingertips, and the story unfolds.

From the nadir of my dreams came the copious adoration I felt when that arrow from the infamous Cupidon struck. The fates had worn me thin, and I now looked on the world with cloudy eyes, but this touch upon the shoulder from the delicate, caring, fingertips of Aphrodite, in the place of the cold tipped scythe of Death saved me. Or at least in the beginning it saved me, for as the time waned so did the loyalty of the dearest of cohorts. The betrayal of my dear comrade in arms, followed as well by my beloved inamorata has driven me to this steadfast alienation from the world. This idée fixe keeps these scars open, which allow the blood to fall from the ventricles, and never reach the atriums. The arteries are running blue and cold, contrary to the bursting red expected of them the act ultimately reflecting this feeling, in which time is fleeting, and yet no matter how many digressions I use in which to stall, here I still sit, the ink, the memories, and myself. Yet it must be told for I wish not to feel this alone anymore, a servant to the agony of loss, and so I spill out this plea for closure in my distinct slur of words.

The world was rapturous in its own endeavors, and I found myself mulling the metronomic characteristics that a human body might be capable of, when the figure appeared from behind, and with it brought a calling like the Seraphim’s song. Enchanting of the heart came easily, and perhaps it shouldn’t have. For it threw me into a labyrinth, with a stalking Minotaur all its own just waiting for the moment in which the bond showed a schism. If only Eros had hired Lycurgus to formulate the constitution for his now vile treachery to the heart, the supposed oxygen for life. Love. On initial contact, her angelic qualities had reduced me to a state in which I would have been comparable to a pre-pubescent harlequin, inflicted with aphasia. However this mindless loss of the vernacular, did not stop the heart from dancing its two-step, and soon both hearts, beat close in time. It was such a dance of pure aphrodisia that the heavens could not match it with their finest of wines served in new skins. So began our tryst, the embrace of dreams that could save this wreck, that could restore the faith that was lost; alas, it was to be just another puerile resolution molded on New Year’s Eve in hopes of concealing whatever faults we secretly searched for. Oh, but in the beginning how it wasn’t so. We were lovers who could not be silenced to the world around. Mouthing Shakespeare from every angle, wooing each other’s senses with language bursting forth with romance. Perverse to prim onlookers, yet rightly so, but how we showed no fear, how the passion left our tongues seeking out the heart’s companion. Each word slowly beckoning our bodies closer, discovering how they functioned, in each other’s arms we grew up. Unfortunately the clarity of our visions slowly melted into a cipher indistinguishable from the flirtatious notions we once threw about. For what did I have to blame for this transmogrification of our passion? There was another lurking in the dark, watching, a voyeur thriving on the malice running through his veins. Under the watch from this abominable being our connection faded. His sleight of hand reversed the affections I had garnered. “So long as I can breathe or I can see, so long lives your love which gives life to me” gave way to feelings of contempt echoing “Sir the Volsces are in arms” which gave to this bitterness residing between my breastbone. Now I scream these infidelities that have cut deep, and I fight in the form of “Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.” Yet it is all a lie, for you have contaminated me like a virus. The vibrancy that was etched into the world from this lascivious yet amorous rendezvous unfettered during its existence now lies slain upon the floor, slowly having its color fade from the full spectrum, to calico, to the bleakest of grays. I was a lover whose bohemian ideals had been slaughtered by the capricious acts of the once beloved.

There I lay, in a nonplussed state crying out to the dear omnipotent lord, praying for the shred of mercy, that I was not offered before. If only, if only my heart walls could finally collapse as if they were Jericho under siege; or perhaps a metastasizing cancer nestling into the frontal lobe draining me of the memories. The appeals I made fell one by one, and the days turned to weeks, and still there was no transubstantiation of the pain, the waters were not running clear as they should; they suffered from a gray opacity.

“Angels! Angles, come to me! Sing me a lullaby reserved for those moribund in nature! Undo my double helix, undo the makings, and undo the suffering. Damn you, Raphael and your kind, who refuse to heal these scars. I wish not to sleep alone tonight. Whisper in my ear ‘bleed, baby, bleed.’” These were my incessant pleas to the heavens, night after night, begging for the pain to stop. My wings had been cut from me whilst in flight, and I had fallen victim to the dear collusive mistress. I had fallen victim to my own incognizance for I could not see, the idle eyes that stared back; I could not see the aberration, nor your hand in my chest searching for my heart, in an attempt to extinguish its life. Our dialogues, had hence been stripped of their enduring fondness, and now melted into monologues spoken to the shoulder blades, as the vexations built, and the echoes of footsteps were the only reply. We would scream for a pause, a break, only to be met with the silence, accented through each drop from the ducts. When did the innocence we thrived on become besmirched? Why did that Cupidon perform his vilest of capers? His arrow now tinged with a stygian shade of red via the piercing of hearts. The cognizance of what everything truly is has set in; the dear inamorata is nothing more than a sycophant, she is not a Seraphim, yet a streambed dried, for she executed her Naiad. Though you might say, “behold the world is build on interminable leaps, and bounds, don’t fall short, don’t you dare,” or so I’d like to think. However, the jocosity has ceased, and I have fallen, embodied in my edification of the way the heart ceases to beat when betrayed by the flash of a knife in the dark. The knife’s hilt gripped in the hand of that dear comrade, a wolf in sheep’s clothing enacting the subversion of something pure, a twentieth century tragedy, oh how I loathe you, you modern day Judas assigned to me.

In this confession to the omnipotence that resides above the cirrus layer, I repeal all notions for the canonization of the once dear inamorata; for she has killed the Hyas Tyee, and invoked a desolation within the remains of this pulp, formerly known as a heart, that wheezes for vengeance. Original sin has contaminated the constituents in a method that hid its illicit notions. Now in the dark, in this noxious embracement of dreams and reality, there is a monster, who is molded in the make of Scylla, and is rearing from behind bearing the teeth that will end this allotted forty years suffering. I feel a force bearing down upon these shoulders that have bore all the suffering they can; I grow weary, and tired of this life, I long to feel nothing. I shall take a defeat, and fire upon myself in a liberation that tastes sweet for a second, and stops the thoughts constantly slashing at your prey, the dear heart, and finally will the mirth that started the cycle be dissolved in a nine-millimeter red blood symphony. The swallow flies to Capistrano once more, with the taste of death on its beak. Oh abhorrent creator, voracious for misery, with your clandestine notions. Look hard and suffer the guilt, for this is the end. Bitter and lonely to the end dear love, best friends forever? Best friend said pull the trigger.

Oh helmsman, dear comrade, what have I done! I cannot bear the weight of my betrayal anymore. My dear paladin lies slain upon that arrow, yet it was not the sterling Cupidon that hath released it. It was I in my jealous attack, my clandestine notions, my vile caper, and I have absconded with the innocence. Oh woe. The veins have been slit, and the romance bleeds away. The budding rose, wilts and blackens, it has been robbed of its virtues symbolizing love, unending, enduring love. Now I am left to cradle your heard on my lap, for I have found you cold upon the floor. I weep in my self-loathing, while constructing this obdurate epitaph. Yet I shall right the wrong, and I join you with the blood from my soul, hewn upon the serrated edges of my broken heart. Epilogue for a tragedy.