Tombs

—we built tombs for one another

We pressed inexperienced lips against each other, learning for the first time how to explore one another’s bodies

We got drunk on one another & tasted the fruit of blooming love

How I wish we could go back to that time but alas

Time travel is not a skill for us mortals

—we built tombs for one another

We turned against one another & lost the innocence of our youth

This world made us so cold, so cold to one another

Your body & soul were unfamiliar to me

No longer the boy who’d kissed me so passionately

Or gave me the promise of the sun & moon if I so desired

—we built tombs for one another

We fought & raged & left scars on each other’s bodies

I broke you when I drove a spear through your chest

And you broke me when you kissed me with poison on your lips

How I wish we could remove those times but alas

There is no cure for regret in this world

—we built tombs for one another

Our war finished & the impulsiveness we shared as hot-blooded boys diminished

And we turned from boys to men, from enemies to lovers

And we learned to forgive, to learn each other’s bodies once more between the silk of our sheets & the night sky

But we still remembered how we’d fought so viciously

And we could not love each other as we’d once done in our youth

Because you were guarded against my hands

And I was guarded against your lips

—we built tombs for one another

Our families tell us we are no longer young

They urge us to start families of our own

And offer to find us young and delicate wives who will dedicate themselves to us

But how do we tell them we’d rather spend the rest of our lives with one another

Not as friends but as lovers spending our limited time erasing the hurt we’d inflicted on one another in our impulsiveness

—we built tombs for one another

Our families are suspicious of our intimate familiarity with one another

They purse their lips when they find us with our hands on each other in a way friends nor brothers do not touch

Your mother asked if I corrupted you & told me I should have died on the battlefield

And I told her you are not as innocent as you make yourself seem

Because I am all too familiar with how you’d kissed me with such gentleness as if afraid I would break & then kissed me with the intent to steal my life from me

And that she should not put you on a pedestal because you are nothing but a mortal like the rest of us

—we built tombs for one another

I told you I wanted to die with you & you flinched as I laid my spear on the table between us & my hands trembled as you handed me the poison you coated your mouth with all those years ago

‘In life & death,’ you whispered against my lips & I agreed because there is no world without you

So we built tombs for one another and placed them side by side & waited for the day we’d need them

The wait wasn’t long before you took out our weapons and told me you were ready

I’d smiled and said we could enter the afterlife together