The Abdication Of My Heart Poem by Debajani Pattanayak

Edward, I see you
crown slipping from your
brow like a fallen star,
palaces shrinking into
shadows
As you walked toward your
Wallis, flame in silk.
Her eyes were a forbidden
sanctuary.
The throne trembled behind
you,
cold marble pillars mourning
your choice.
Yet in your chest
Love roared louder than the
voice of empire.
You gave up kingdoms,
You chose the curve of her
smile
over the weight of a crown.
And I
I sit with ink-stained fingers,
longing for such ruinous
devotion,
a love fierce enough to burn
bridges,
to topple crowns,
to stake the world for a single
embrace.
But the air I breathe is
thinner now
today's hearts crack like
glass,
fragile promises
scattering in dust and neon
light.
No one would bleed a throne
for love
They barely bleed for vows.
My paper stares back,
lonely, unsatisfied.
I press the pen, harder,
harder—
until the nib snaps,
a splinter of steel,
falling like a broken crown
onto my notes of longing,
and the page bleeds
with the death of a love
I will never find.