My Cardboard Balcony

Love, Don't You Know by Belinda Roddie Love, don't you know I'll marry you some day and carry you over the threshold of our new home? I know you don't think you're gay, but I see the way you stare at me, love, when I pass by you. I still feel your touch lingering on my arm, your fingers warm. I know that your parents don't think too much of me, and they don't think this is the norm for you. Yet, here we are. Your bury your face into my shoulder. You breathe in my breath. You want to kiss me, and even more, you want to become one with me and die together, if it were possible. May I have the honor of your hand some day?

They say you shouldn't shoot the messenger, yet here I am: bleeding profusely on the king's carpet, mixing red with red, though the red from me will turn to brown in just a few hours as the oxygen in the air has its way with it. The king holsters his gun, and I am left to cling to what little life I have now as the monarch's steward stares at me. "Your Majesty," he says, "do you think, perhaps, you may have overreacted a bit to the news?"