Solitude is the progeny of loneliness,
born of necessity from a withering soul.
Company of love may find me… if only this
bastion of esteem I could outwardly extol.

I tell myself I am alone but not lonely,
but deep within heart’s chambers I know it’s not true.
Who now could breach this citadel? Oh, if only,
I could stop walling up so someone could pass through.

~

I will never forget when my bastion crashed down,
She approached my walls without armor, sword, nor shield,
Standing upon the rubble of my pride and crown,
Felled onto my knees to her innocence I yield.

My loneliness stripped and bared she took no quarter,
Yet held my heavy hands weightless into her own,
She showed me something stronger than brick and mortar,
A seraphic third eye from whence passion is sown.

~

But the long years had come and taken her away,
I miss my amaranthine inamorata.
Returning to her places now empty and gray.
I feel like I’ve become persona non grata.

Now the mortar and brick builds around me once more,
I fear I’ll be lost behind walls she once leveled,
Where is my great Diviner who conquers love’s war?
Raze my citadel lest this king be disheveled.

Written in vers libre with dodecasyllabic quatrains in three acts. I include an enjambment in act one. I originally wrote this as prose in 2017.