Prologue
I lie in wait, in rest, but nevermore in beauty. Gone in time are the tender thoughts I had for you and how we would spend our evenings under the crooked tree. I am forced to watch you grow old and leave me, never knowing who you are to me.
Bare feet that were meant to dance along the floor to a melody now walk silently atop a bed of dead leaves and twigs. I tread a sleepless path, I trace it every night as I imagine you resting, safe as I never was. I follow it up the winding trail, down the cobble streets, up to your window till at last, I see you.
Skin and bones will never hold promise for me again, the caws of ravens on the rise of mist call me back to my home, I must follow my footprints, still fresh from the pale dew. Remnants of who have been I slip by me as a handful of my mother's favourite flowers entrance me, somehow making their way into my hand. Although the pain of forgetting who I used to be assails me like lashes from an owl's claws, the thrum deep inside my head coaxes me to let them leave.
So I will hold these flowers like I should have held you. Countless nights I have found myself at the base of the crooked tree, I have been set free from my pain, but I can never know why I place these violets at the place where I died night after night.
Even though I am dead, my love will never die.
