The safest I’ve felt, the most seen. I lay myself bare beneath those eyes. But he doesn't tarnish the glow burnish it more. Fire grows in me, still So delicate, so unimaginably gentle, so rare. Oh, how lucky I am to share the few turns of my book with you, to have you by so close. Your fingertips slip from mine. The terror, it engulfs me. My anchor, my hearth, my haven it strips me. Vulnerable. But even in this afterlife, his soul veils me in the comfort I still call, you. Where are you now? I need to find— I can’t find you. I wake. Oh, my precious, pretty Patroclus, please don’t ever leave me. Can’t fathom this grey world, My world, without the radiance you are in it, with me. The bliss you give me, every passing day I savor, with you. A harbor to return to when the sun sets, when the storm settles, But it never did. I became the storm. I lost it all. I lost you. The joy around me it chokes me. I let the darkness Take me. Please. Now, I sleep (You're not my lover, But what if— I've not loved someone—anyone—as purely as I have you)