Eulogy

Today I feel an irreversible pain. Any nobility I once possessed has been taken indefinitely. On the date we were meant to wed, my goddess, my Juliet has been taken from me. Death pays no mind to love or hate, or status or plans. If any mercy were shown, I would have been granted this marriage. How I have longed to become familiar with Juliet: her hopes and dreams, her weaknesses and strengths, and every mark and crevice on the porcelain of her skin. The few times I was graced with her presence, I knew that she loved me. And still, I was shamed. Juliet had a fire burning inside of her that I can only long to possess. Even watching her from afar fascinated me. The way she walked and talked was astonishingly laced with mystery. I felt constantly a breath away from Juliet. Each time I felt I had caught her; she was another inch apart from me, always achingly out of my reach.  What I expected to be a meaningful mark in this life is now a milestone of another kind. Should I find this a dream and awake from it, I would cry tears of gratitude, rather than spill those of agony I am cursed with. My only future has been robbed from me, and now I am halted. I am at a standstill, in a ring of unwanted solitude and abundant grief. No matter the next road I take, it will not be the one I asked for. It will not be silver or gold. I will walk a path that is broken. I will stumble on, with hope of nothing, and Juliet’s name carved in my breath. The significance of this has shattered me, to the bone and beyond, and still I dare ask: What was Juliet hiding from us? What was it bouncing around in her flickering mind?