Erik – Dreams of Darkness
The hours are endless down in the dark.
Even had I not shattered every mirror in
this accursed place,
I would not recognize the man now before me.
Who is this wretch with dripping eyes,
sniveling and wailing like a mad, lost thing
alone in the dark?
Can this be Erik,
the arrogant, the strong,
the scourge of the Paris Opera..?
I hate myself for what I've become.
I would like to blame her for this,
for making a wreckage of what was once a proud, even noble man,
but in the earliest hours of the morning
the lies I tell myself will not stand.
There is no one to blame but Erik.
As much as I would thrust this truth aside,
would bitterly reject the weakness and shame
in which I wrap this crumbled form,
I know I can blame no one but myself.
I've allowed myself to die here,
in spirit if not in flesh,
to lay down my hopes,
my ambitions and dreams,
in the wake of her betrayal.
I'm no stranger to self-loathing –
we've been old friends,
bosom companions you might say,
since I first saw my face reflected in my mother's eyes
and cringed away with a child's innocent horror.
I've grown used to this face –
the years have not been kind,
but there was not much to work with.
My mistake was in thinking that she would see more,
could look past the withered flesh,
wasted muscle and bone,
and see the man beyond.
She was practically a child and –
more the foolish, I –
I thought her a blank page on which I might
compose such a symphony
of spirit and passion that our hearts would fuse
with its heat.
Her innocence would be my freedom,
and in her eyes and her voice
I would live and love always.
Such are the dreams of fools.
Looking back, I see my mistakes.
I chose her for the wrong reasons.
She was no angel, merely a girl
blessed with a near-perfect voice.
Her beauty and naivete
(and a certain sense of little-girl-lost)
were alluring, yes, but the cracks in her porcelain psyche
would not support the pedestal
on which I sat the sweet child.
Of course she went to him –
he asked nothing of her,
gave everything without restraint,
satisfying her every whim.
I asked nothing but that she sing –
he asked only that she not.
I too would have given her anything –
but my 'anything' did not come
wrapped in silver paper overflowing with velvet ribbons –
the hot, wet velvet of my heart was not enough.
How is it that I can see all of this,
see the sense of forgetting, of forgiving, and yet
cling with both hands to my regret and self-recrimination,
tearing in 'til my fingers bleed?
Why do I allow myself the glorious pain
of the memory of her touch, her scent, her taste –
now bitter as gall on my mind's tongue,
sour as wormwood –
drinking glass after glass of my own weakness and failure.
Though my time grows short
(and I pray nightly for the sweet release
that cannot come soon enough),
even now I cannot surrender entirely
the vain hope that I might one morning wake
to find her beside me, telling me in that little-girl voice
that it was all a nightmare,
a phantasm born of my fear and doubt,
and that she would never, ever leave.
It is easier now to keep my eyes closed,
and not to wake, sheltering beneath the music
as beneath the soft waves of her hair.
The ivory beneath my fingers is not her skin –
and the cold music yielded by the unfeeling keys
is no more frigid than her heart.
AMH
12 April, 2005
Thank you as always to my beta reader, without whom none of this would be.