VI. Poet
He was a poet. He was a poet and he recited rhymes, found the words that fit best and composed poems; he told her his dreams and let her know of his feelings with his lines. And he imagined other worlds, because that's what poets do− dream and imagine and turn harsh reality into something joyful and beautiful. He walked to her casually, and held her with an ease that made her wonder how it could ever be wrong; and then he whispered promises that she wanted to think were not lies disguised as truths, but words that he truly believed, that she believed, that they would both believe forever.
Now he was composing a ballad, an almost-song that reminded her he'd once been a musician, and she still remembered the notes, how to play with him and sing with him and become one and the same. But this time he had chosen poetry, and she understood why− because poems rhyme and rhymes are all different and all unique. He knew exactly what to say, what to whisper and what emotions to convey. Once, he stood and went to gaze outside the window; and she joined him in front of the large panel.
He started counting the stars. It was a joke at first− a light comment, a playful suggestion. But she caught his reflection in the window and her eyes glimpsed the white dots in the sky, and she smiled, because this was expected. Tonight, he was the poet, and it seemed only right that they would count the stars, count the bright spots in the illuminated sky. Long ago, it seemed, it had been dusk, she'd been a dreamer, and they'd watched the clouds; but now it was dark, and he was the poet who murmured the names of constellations. She listened, fascinated, watching as his descriptions encompassed a vast area of the night.
Poets aren't immortal, but she knew his rhymes were; she could feel in the melancholy behind the stanzas that he was trying to make things last, even if the time they spent here together was short. Those lines… they made her heart swell and filled her soul with hope, and they would remain long after he stopped being a poet and she stopped being a painter and a dreamer. They would still be alive after they'd leave the room; they would still be here the next day, waiting for them near the window, waiting for them in their dreams, reminding them that tonight, he'd improvised himself as a poet and the room had given him the inspiration he sought.
So for now, she listened intently as he told her the story of Cassiopea, the mother of Andromeda, showed her the stars at the apogee of the vault of heaven. She followed the patterns with him, and he knew them all− the stories of Aldebaran, of Betelgeuse, of Orion and all the constellations in the Southeast. He even told her about the stars they couldn't see. He mentioned Leo and Cancer and Cygnus and Aquarius, told her about the legends and the myths. She leaned back into his embrace, enjoying the feel of his warm arms around her; and when she asked how many stars he had counted, he just turned to look at her, and she could feel his grin in the dark.
He'd counted them all, he'd seen them all, but somehow, they were no longer important, because tonight he was seeing her. And that's what he told her− because poems allow you to say things that you can't ordinarily say, and nights like these make you forget that on the outside, there is another world where those who speak their true feelings to a woman who isn't their wife can only end up as fallen bards walking the avenue of the ages alone.
But tonight, he would count the stars in her gaze. Tonight, he'd be a prince and she'd be a princess among the heroes and villains, and together, they would rule the world from this room.