Inspired by the charismatic Bruno Mars and his masterpiece "When I Was Your Man".
Warnings:
a) Love triangle!: 2p!China/Japan/*secret character you will find at the end of the poem*
b) Expect unexpectedness.
When I Was Your Man
Kiku is dancing with another man.
Beyond the rolling mountains,
Enshrouded
In the black breath of the night,
The village heart was
Aglow
With the zeal of the
Summer Festivals.
Like a flower of fire;
A Goldfish
Dancing amidst the ethereal dusk.
•
A young man admired this
Aestival beauty
From the confines of his home.
As
The song of the festivities
Lured his heart,
Tugging, tugging,
Enticing his yearning soul,
The man faltered wistfully.
The muse is caged, unable to be present
To endeavour
The fruit of his culture.
•
"Kiku."
•
He turned to me.
Something like
Sorrow,
Something like
Lust,
Lurking in a prison beyond
The milky opaque of his eyes.
•
"May I be given permission to go?"
He begged.
•
The newcomer,
With hair as
Dark
As the rolling hills,
And eyes which flared like stoked coals,
Fondled Kiku's frail waistline.
•
"Why so,
My beloved Kiku?"
•
"They dance", Kiku
Stifled
A whimper.
His favourite blue robes
Were failing him fast.
"They dance,
And it's the most beautiful thing.
I've always wanted to try,
Yao—"
•
The jaws of
A selfish pride
Clamped
His bottom lip,
Making Kiku revel in innocent pain.
•
Cruel fate.
Now he will kiss the festival goodbye for another year.
•
But.
That was years ago.
•
Now my Kiku
Is dancing with another man.
"Yao?
"YAO!
"YAO, HELP ME!"
•
I cackled with glee.
The statesmen
Huddled around me
Quivered
In their robes.
•
The one-way panel in the
Doorframe
Was all I had to know that the
Fraud Assassins
Had yet to devour you.
•
A simulation.
You were my dainty flower,
But even a rose
Must eventually bear stinging thorns.
Because I loved you,
I'm doing this for
Your
Own good.
•
A statesman's knuckles
Hovered
Temptingly over a lever:
Your only means to safety.
I hissed at him.
He cringed,
Then jerked away.
•
From the cusps of the one-way panel,
You staggered into
A corner,
Your katana sheathed and useless,
Bobbing
Against your shuddering hips.
Screaming my name like a prayer:
"YAO! YAO! YAO, HELP ME!"
•
But I scowled to myself.
Those thorns weren't prickling, and
I
Needed to taste blood.
•
A twisted grin
Curled my lips at the seams.
Made my eyes
Flare
Brighter than nine dying Suns,
As an assassin
Made to unsheathe his dagger.
•
And that was when I recalled it.
•
I had not bestowed any of them weapons.
These were not my
Fraud Assassins!
A simulation had rotted into a conspiracy.
•
"PULL THE LEVER!" I roared.
•
The lever was yanked,
But
Plunked off altogether,
Ends mangled and
Chopped;
The masterpiece of a poisoned blade.
•
There was no time to lose.
•
I tore through the screen
And cried:
"KIKU, GIVE ME YOUR HAND!"
•
Kiku's eyes were soft.
The calm after a storm.
But shortly after
Flickered an iridescent russet.
His fingers
Did not clamour for me,
But clenched the hilt of his
Katana.
•
The thorns were protracted
Just as I raced to your aid.
Those blood-lathered petals
Knew
Who needed saving from what.
•
But it did not save me.
•
So
Now my Kiku,
Is dancing with another man.
The letters littered my porch
Like
Wasted dreams.
They'd all began
In the same hopeful cursives:
•
"My dearest Yao.
When,
May I know,
Are you coming home?"
•
The new year?
The sweltering summer heat?
Even in the crisp, lonely winters.
You drawled through them alone
Weeping in bed,
For I was far too busy
Gambling my hours away.
Far, FAR too busy
To
Ever write back the sincerest:
"I'm thinking of you always,
Kiku."
Though I loved you,
You
Were never good enough
For my precious immortal clock.
•
So the letters
Kept wafting in.
Then flung outside
To rot amidst the leaves.
•
Though one day,
Even that came to an end.
•
The pile of letters ceased
To ascend to the heavens,
But diminished as
One by one,
They rotted into our mangled past.
Seeped into oblivion,
And the
Rancid autumn leaves,
With no more letters to make up for
The decomposed departures.
•
I clutched your last letter in my fingers.
Trembling with rage.
Wildfire eyes lapping compassion.
Lips twitching and frothing;
Wondering
Selfishly,
If you had forgotten me at last.
•
But when I stormed
The earliest junk
To Nagoya,
You were knee-deep in the company of
The Occident.
•
New friends.
•
Nations
Who'd happily splurge years
To be with you.
To grasp your hand when
Fraud Assassins
Sought to devour you.
To trim your thorns, and present to
You
The dainty flower you've always been within.
To escort you to every festival,
Knowing
How much you'd love
To be able to dance.
•
It was only under Heaven's will
That dynasties proceeding,
My Kiku
Would be dancing with another man.
•
… Tears welled my stoked coals,
Diminishing them
To ashes.
Splayed into the wind with
No words to remember,
No face to see,
And nothing to remain
But
The pungent stench of something burning.
Burning. Burning…
My pride.
My ego.
My needs
And the selfish incubus who'd blinded me
To all of your suffering.
•
I had been a fool.
Holding fast like a dragon his hoard,
Not knowing of what I
Sold
As a price to my sins:
The one nation who meant more to me
Than
Anything else in the world could ever amount to.
•
My Kiku slipped quietly out of the door that day.
•
To leave the bed we used to share
One side too vast.
The distant banter of the Summer Festivals
A mockery to my bleeding ears.
To harrow my heart and leave it to throb bloody,
Whenever I hear
So much as a sliver of
His name.
•
Kiku.
•
You left
To never return to me.
•
For now he is dancing
With another man.
I behold from the cusps
Of your bathroom mirror,
As your
Other man
Fuss himself.
•
He slips on a
Crimson kimono:
Your request for the coming eve.
He fumbles with his belt,
Though
He is laughing.
His amber eyes twinkle with something like glee;
Something like lenient, decrepit love,
As he checks himself
Back and front.
All that time spent on
One silly little date.
From within the cusps of the bathroom mirror,
I laugh with him,
And we grin at each other.
•
At long last,
I coax him to retrieve the
Bouquet
Of scarlet chrysanthemums
From the lip of the basin.
Freshly-picked
In your honour.
•
"I'm ready",
he breathes.
•
"You are",
I assure him.
•
"Yao?"
•
"Kiku!"
He fumbles with the bouquet
And nearly spills it.
I grapple it
Before it could burst.
We chuckle again,
Then,
I dust down his kimono
One last time,
Cuff his hair back into a ponytail,
And send him off to
Escort you
To your first Summer Festival.
•
May this one be yours to treasure to eternity and beyond, my beloved Kiku.
•
My pride.
My ego.
My needs
And the selfish incubus who'd blinded me
To all of your suffering.
•
I know
If I swallow my fiendish dignity now,
And told you first of
How I was wrong.
And how I am sorry,
And
How I want to cleanse all I had
Wracked
Of you,
And do all I should have done
When I was your man.
•
… I can't.
Not anymore.
•
So I bid you farewell,
My beloved Kiku.
With hopes that this
New one
May heal the scars I had pierced
To your soft, fluttering heart.
•
I hope he gives you flowers,
And
Holds your hand,
Even when Fraud Assassins
Threaten
To devour you whole.
•
I hope he dedicates the forever
Of his immortal clock to yours.
•
And I hope he can waltz you to every festival,
And I hope
He dances with you.
•
I hope this other man.
This new Yao,
With soot-brown hair
And
Laughing amber eyes,
Will be whatever to you that I
Wasn't,
And everything more.
•
Doing all the things I should have done
When I was your man.
Celebrate, my aching worlds! Because the couple we see waltzing before us now, synchronized shoes sifting through the dapple-grey moonlight of the tiles, are two completely different men. No longer the men who had bore grudges unprecedented; no longer the men who clutched love scythed and gushing blood, trapped in the belly of war and conundrum. The mirror is one and the same, but the past is happy to see his future trail away, to repent with joy for all it had harrowed in a world left to dust.
I believe they are prepared to dance with other men.
As is the nature of 2p!China/Japan/China.
... Have you ever thought about it that way?
-Plumeria-hi