Do You Love Me Not? Poem by Emma Atkinson

My Love,
Do you love me not?
Are your thoughts of me as fickle as the autumn wind
That tangles in my hair,
Filling it with knots?
My Love,
My thoughts of you are as constant as the sun-
They rise and set, these unborn hopes
In the blue canvas of my heart,
Held aloft by ropes,
Tangled, knarled ones made of midnight speculations
That have yet to come to be.
These thoughts, they fill me with dread elation.
I run from it, scared that it may be but a false promise,
A promise that you love me.
And yet, you love me not, I am sure of this.
Or else, would you not think of me?
Would you not answer my words?
No, your thoughts fly far from me like uncaged birds,
Soaring hight into the sky,
Raven wings carrying them far, far away to a place I cannot go.
I, a wistful flower, brushed my the wind, cannot fly.
My Love,
Answer me as I stand here, wretched, with my eyes glassy, to puddles of autumn rain.
Will you ever think of me again?
Or shall your thoughts forever stray
Like leaves in the wind,
Red-gold and fleeting,
Far, far away?
Answer me this;
Do you love me?
Answer me, so my thoughts may rest,
Folding their fragile wings, after flying south to my heart,
To nestle in my breast.
There, in their retreat, they may sing their song of mourning,
The sound of a heart breaking, a harsh sweet warning.
I hear it on the lips of the loveless,
See it in the eyes of the unwanted.
It is a creature cruelly devoid of art,
Tormented, haunted,
An agonizing echo of human loss,
Written on the soul of man.
Written on my own, an engraved cross.
So tell me, My Love,
Do you love me not?