AN: Sort of an experimental poem-type thing that I've been tinkering with for awhile and finally liked enough to post. I hope you like it! :)
Enough
I thought it would be enough
To be loved
It isn't
But it has to be
She has always cherished a daguerreotype likeness of her father
Encircled by a gilded frame that never managed to shine as brightly as her hair
Once it had whiled away the hours of our lessons clasped fiercely to her heart
A shield forged in gold and sepia
Like an emblem of his love
Her father protecting her
As he always had in life
How ironic
That that same protective presence should be the very crack in her armor that made her vulnerable
That allowed me such a perfect entryway to her soul
I saw the wounds left by her father's death
The rips in her wings that were invisible to the rest of the world
The fractures that could only be mended by the fulfillment of his dying promise to her
The photograph now lies in some dusty drawer of her dressing table
Absent like her father
Gone but not forgotten
Her mind is preoccupied by thoughts of me
Not me
Not Erik
The me, I, by rights, should have been
Could never have been
Am
No
She has no notion of how very near to each other we truly are
Though still not near enough
Not near enough for either one of us
She kneels prostrate before her mirror
Praying that I could be closer to her
Wishing that I could stand before her like an ordinary man
As do I
Her heart is filled with visions of an angel
As is mine
She is an angel
And she loves me
Purely, truly, completely
Her love is a shining beacon
That chases the darkness from the corners of my mind
Just as rodents skitter away at the approach of the rat-catcher's lamp
But as true as her love is
That is how false is that which she has lavished it upon
She loves the Angel of Music
And Erik is no angel
And yet, somehow, I am
She says I am
And she speaks nothing but the truth
I must be an angel
To be able to endure such exquisite torture
To see the way her blue eyes dart about the dressing room at the barest echo of my voice
Full of awe
Full of inspiration
Full of love
For me
Not for me
For the angel
She could never love Erik
She already does
But she doesn't know what it truly is that she loves
And thus it isn't real!
And if she ever did know the truth
It never could be
I have trapped myself absolutely
Painted my way into a corner
One from which it is impossible to escape without demolishing the entire room
And such a beautiful room it is
She is so pure
So good
So entirely trusting
So naive
She is the angel
And I am a monster
And I am an angel
And he was an angel
Oh, he was an angel
His golden hair gleaming not-quite-as-exquisitely as her own
But still more than the her father's picture frame
Still more than my lank dark strands
His sky-clear eyes the perfect complement to her blue gaze
Glowing with youth
Rather than sickly yellow luminescent hellfire
Youth, where I am Age
Life, where I am Death
All the light that she so craved seemed to pour forth from his very soul
And I knew she would be pulled to it
Like a sunflower turning its face toward its namesake star
Just as I yearned to be near her light
How could I blame her?
But him
Him, I could blame
When he held her to his breast
When my heart clenched as tightly as the arms he wrapped around her
I told myself that it wasn't simple, crude envy
The sort of emotion that would be so far below an angel
I told myself that I would feel the same about anyone else
Anything else
Anything that threatened to intrude between Christine and her promising future
Whether that 'anything' came in the shape of a young man or not
Not for the first time, I wanted to believe in my own lies, the way she so guilelessly did
But the truth was that I wanted to be in his place
And a grasping, vicious jealously clawed its way up my throat whenever I saw them together
To be so young and handsome and burning with light
My arms around her
My heart swelling with love, instead of constricting in jealousy
Myself between her and her career
And nothing intruding between us
I wanted to kill him
I wanted to make him look like me
Though I knew he could never look like me
Not really
Not alive
But every time I saw him smile at her
Every time I saw her smile at him
I was more than willing to try
But then
Before I had the chance
She sent him away
For the sin of doubting the existence of their own kindred
I knew I had no chance
Even if I did kill him
She had obviously given him her heart
And even an angel can not wrest such a thing back once it has been freely given
So, I had resolved to remove myself from her life
To let her have what she so clearly wanted
I couldn't bear to break her precious heart
There are so few precious things in this world
I would return to my cold, dark, empty home
My cold, dark, empty life
And never venture upstairs again
For fear of the pain that hearing her voice again would bring me
It was only the faint echo of an angry shout that drew me back
Filtering through the mirror and to my ears as I had lingered one more moment
Savoring the final traces of her voice as she greeted my rival
After what she couldn't realize I had intended to be my last farewell
I drifted back to my nook
Curious at what could have drawn such a harsh tone from the girl
Whose nature was as sweet as her voice
I found her crying, alone
She had tried to bring him into her world of fairies and angels
Taken his hand as she told him her secret
As if this realm of magic was a physical place she could lead him to
She trusted him with her precious, vulnerable heart
And he had laughed at her
Not mean-spiritedly
But even so
He had laughed
And she had spit back her humiliated indignation
And he left
And she stayed
And I stayed
Once upon a time, our every lesson was punctuated with inquiries regarding her father
Did he still cough in heaven?
Did he play his fiddle?
Did he miss her?
He hasn't been mentioned in months
Neither has he
I tell her she will be the greatest singer the world has ever known
Truthfully, she already is
The world just doesn't know it yet
She modestly ducks her head when I tell her these things
Her face colouring as prettily as a fresh pink rosebud
A gracious tear slides down her face, glistening like dew on a petal
She doesn't think it possible
Again, nor does the world
Yet
They'll see
She is an angel
And they will see it
Just as surely as she will never see me
She is a good girl
She is a smart girl
Yes, perhaps a bit overly trusting
But a far cry from her colleagues, the flighty girls of the chorus and the corps de ballet
Heads as full of cotton as the gauzy skirts whose loud swishes herald their approach wherever they go
She would leave if she knew
If she had even the slightest suspicion
Run as far and fast as the wind that blows across her northern homeland
And chilling my heart equally in her flight
She loves me
She loves the angel
She insists that she will never leave me
Begs that I must never leave her either
But she loved him as well
And she left him
Compelled him to leave her
Even though he was an angel
I am not an angel
And she doesn't love me
And she would leave
Her snapped wings have been long-since healed
She simply hasn't realised it herself yet
Hasn't dared to stretch them and find them mended and ready to fly
If I were a better man
If I were indeed even a man at all, and not a monster
If I were an angel
I would let her go
I would help her go
But I am no angel
Not to myself, and not to the world
But to her, I am
And I would rather pretend
Spend the rest of my life walking on tiptoe
Delicately skirting anything that might shatter that precious illusion
Devote myself to an existence of frozen stagnation
Rather than take any perilous action
Doing whatever possible to convince even myself that I am what she thinks
Anything, rather than risk dousing the light that she has brought to my dark world
Maybe, someday, I will tell her the truth
Just as I now tell her that her voice will one day rule the worlds' stages
I will tell her then that she doesn't need an angel to lift her to the sky anymore
That I am more albatross than angel, and she is better off without me
Hopefully, for her own sake, she'll believe me when I do
I'm not sure if I could bear to say it twice
Or maybe, someday, she'll make the discovery herself
See the magnificent wings that have always been her own
Better that she should leave of her own volition
Better that I shouldn't have to tear my own heart from my chest
For if I am to die, I would rather it be at the hand of one who loved me
I'll let her go, then
Mournfully, but without resentment
When so many things I've longed for have been denied
How could I resent her for anything that would make her happy?
I would gladly shear off my own fledgling wings and add their feathers to her own, if she only asked
But first she must ask
But, please, not yet
Hopefully not for at least a while longer
Because, at least for now, she loves me
And I love her
And sometimes that means not being loved
So that we may continue to love
I was wrong to think it would be enough to be loved
For there is no such thing as 'enough'
But somehow it has to be
For both of us