Challenge Submission Roses in Autumn

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Challenge Submission Roses in Autumn

summerborn

Born in the Month of Songs
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Local time
Today 8:40 AM
Messages
128
Age
24
Pronouns
He/Him, They/Them
It began with an Autumn breeze – the illness that would take my love away from me.

Blown across the seas, carried on the back of a great ship, on the wracking breath of a sailor. Every cough spotting his kerchief with roses – small buds, at first, but they bloomed, and bloomed… until my love, too, smelled their sickly perfume.

My love was not a wealthy man, not even a godly man. My love was a sinner and a street-walker – wild and unrepentant, but with voice and body to rival any of God's angels

Many times I offered him jewels to wear around his lovely neck and dangle from his ears, blood red wine to drink, and feathers to lay his bonny head down upon.

My love took my jewels, wore them, and sold them within the week.

My love drank my wine. I tasted it off of his lips and took my communion of his body.

My love slept with me in my feather bed and was gone come morning light.

He was my love, with the wild dark eyes that haunted my mind, and though I wilted and pined in his absence, I never felt more alive than when I was by his side.

We met in the Winter – my love radiant in the snow.

Spring blew by – he pulled me into the rain and kissed me beneath the street lamps, water soaking our clothes and hair.

Dry, hot Summer – picnics on trips to the countryside; the grass prickling our naked skin.

In the Autumn, he coughed and wasted, staining the white sheets red, though I pled and pled to let me take him far from there to some mountain retreat, some holy spring of healing…

My love was resolute. My love would not be moved from the city that he loved; from the people that adored and despised him.

For three weeks, he held court in his sickbed, and they flocked to him, all, offering gifts and tears, well-wishes and apologies, flowers and promises:

That they would see him in the next life – That he would never be forgotten. All while I sat by his side, just one suitor among many – but I loved him truly, and in the end, it was my hand he held as he breathed his last breath, stolen away from me by that illness that came to him on the Autumn breeze.

I come to the square every week to look upon my love, immortalized in brass. My intention, initially, to have the statue installed in the countryside, but the first time I looked upon its face, I knew that just as in life, he could never be happy there, surrounded by never-changing greenery.

My love stands in the square, now. The people only know his name from the placard bearing his name and the dates of his birth and death, but they lay flowers and trinkets at his feet, lighting candles at dusk for his blessing. And then, there is me, though my hands grow gnarled and I must now use a cane to walk, sitting on the bench across from him – haunted by him still.


Thanks for the read! I hope you enjoyed my gay little version of Annabel Lee.
-Summer
 
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