Love Taker

If you want to know why don't you ask him?

I can hardly tell you why he did it!

When I decided to abandon him

I did not know the act would leave him in

Such desolation! That he would commit

Himself to that piteous ditch suggests

I barely knew him at all. You, was I

So wrong to forsake his person that he

Should feel the need to rid himself of this

Life and so desert the army of

The living? Was I the captor of his

Heart that he should jilt the world of time

Still owed? I know my sin weighs heavily on me,

For great injury did I heap upon

Him by the abduction of his fair lass, 

But! on my life, I did not discard him

On some highway like a mindless manic;

You get me? That He should run trip and fall

To end his days in a silly ravine;

He was my friend, though I had lost sight

Of it when she came along, her long hair

Swaying back and forth, her hair tilted back

With just the hint of of desire; I sure

Made a mistake. What do you think of her?

Was it she, her disloyalty that led

Him to this, and not my heinous act? Yet

Why should he renounce himself for her while

There are still women to have him, are

Still walking in the daylight? They are not

So unhinged as is deaths door that he should

Find them unattractive. However much

I do contend with my conscience and fail

To overcome the dead weight of guilt, I,

I, am nothing when compared to the tears

She shed over his body. You tell me,

Was she so fond of him still when she left,

That she should weep for the man she rejected?

With only a day's separation? How,

How can this be that in but a day she

Left both he and I, in much the same way?

And you'll ask why I left her alone there,

Well, my guilt was turned to injurious wrath,

and her tears did turn my heart to hate;

For how could she love him so well when she

Professed such love for me? By her wailing

She had renounced me, I said,  I will be

Her lad no more, let her forsake me now

For that corpse she bemoans! Let her leave me!

And may she shun all of society

For the act of murder, for robbing that

Man of his senses; should she entrap me

As she did to him? Pluck from my heart the

Very keys to my soul? No! Let her rot,

For I have learned well not to kidnap those

That come willingly only to act the

Part of a dutiful wife! Did she not

Also speak of such things with him when she

Surrendered herself, body and soul, to

His impatient designs? Let her beg me

As she did to him, when last she did seize

The lifeline of another, snatched him from

Reason and common sense, that's what gets me!

That he loved her for so many days past,

As though a wife, only to be misled

In the end by a common whore! Try me,

I say let her try me, the way she did

Him; let her say whatever she wants, I

Say that no matter what she does she wont,

Shall not succeed in such begging! I'll snub

Her as I would any foe, and I will

Not relinquish; though she promise me the

World: Because you know what? Let me tell you,

She had eyes that sought to abduct me, like

Him, tried to make a slave of me: Until,

Right up until, she thinks that I'm cheap, and

Finds someone with greater ambition. So,

I left. My hearts now made of stone; my friend

Is in a ditch, and I must still atone.

Love Taker, (C) Luke Bennette, March 2012