Inexorable as the tides, the tomb.

My patient lover waits.
I'll meet her at the city gates,
though the old folks say "Too soon."
But they don't know my heart
or how it strives to ruin
me with fear before I see her.

I will wear my best vest for the day
that I am thrown into Her arms.
Her charms have long beguiled me,
so I am sure to be prepared.
I've lingered in the town square,
for a glimpse of Her face.

My old friends will cling with
loving hands, but know I'll not be stalled,
and Mother has known about this day--
she might suspect that I've been called
by the way I am more thoughtful, now.
I know she even knows Her name.

I'm unafraid of anything--but my fear,
and conscious of nothing but my Love.
I long, I lust, my passion like fire,
like hate that has nowhere to go--like
a kind of madness about fate! But
I have to seek Her out to know.

And will she love me back? The whore?
The desperate ghost that haunts my dreams--
perhaps She isn't all she seems;
although Her arms surround me and Her voice
like a dove....She's been with many,
And they are gone. She slaughters memories.

How long would it last?
How long? Before She calls out to another?
But I'm a fool if I don't go. And maybe--
maybe I will be the one. The one so true,
even her lips will crave none but mine,
and her hands seek only my skin alone--

So to the gates I go! I'll miss
you all, but this is what I'd planned
long before I learned to be a man.
My destiny always was Her arms,
her fortune, always mine to see--
What other thing would you have me be?

There is nothing but her
for one like me.