It was a gambit and the salvo first
That I must sacrifice—my very self--
Or else I die, nor had been reimbursed
Though I must meet my fearful, scary self,
Yet even in despite it all were good.
I sacrificed myself not only once,
But twice, the thing you never understood,
At first, when I must turn into a dunce
And second, when I said farewell to you.
For you would be my sacred other part,
And I exist in you as you in me,
But missing of that aspect, joylessly
Meant so much promise early had to thwart,
Yet there were nothing else that I might do.
So I must weep the more, and you the less,
Because I took the burden of the kill
Upon myself, as all my sins confess,
And pain of parting linger even still.
It were as though, in miniature, I lived
A crucifixion, and I had been nailed
Upon the board; yet I was not deceived,
For even by my fate I was impaled.
I nurture it, the wound, these many years,
And so have grown accustomed to its bearance,
At times almost forget it and forget
To feel the pain by which I am beset,
But I take joy, remarking its appearance
With others as like stigma hither steers.