A Love Story In 3 Parts {The Mistress}

A Poem by Foxx Falcon

The first in a series of three poems that tell the tale of two women who loved the same man. This is The Mistress

When first you saw me what did you think?
Did you know when first you touched me
That we would share so soiled a love?
Did you have in mind to bind me with gilded chains
Before you spoke my name?
To blind me with affection I could never know again?

I reflect upon the years in your absence,
When you return to she
Whom to your own God you vowed forever
I reflect upon the warm day of my stolen youth
When first you captured my imagination

There was a promise made the night I took you to my bed
I could never know the cost the years would bring
I would never pretend I do not love you
Or that I could deny you
You've held me since the beginning
This young heart laments only that I may never fully have you

You never speak her name,
You are kind enough to do me this favor
I am not so naive as to think she is ever far from your mind
Somewhere across the waters
She claims your name
And proof of your love suckle at her breast
I do not know her
But we are sisters
To share in the love of a great man such as you
Is to be bound
I have often envied her
That she should have claim to your eternity
And in these times I have held you tighter
My heart also breaks for her
For I love her, and I hate her
She must be such a strong, and good woman
I wonder if she ever thinks of me
You could not be such a fool to think
I am a secret
I think of what your months together must be like
Perhaps in her company you do not speak my name
When you sit beside her in the quiet country side
Of your green land
You have told me when you are in your land it is cold
Do you sit beside a fire?
With children in your lap, sharing your tales of the sea?
She smiles
I know that she does
She loves you
Though she may know pain and heartache
She will not deny you when you are before her
Somewhere in the light of your life she shines
While I remain but a tender shadow

I could turn away
Bar the windows when again the year turns
And come you with your ship to my home
Which is to you such a paradise
The very beauty for which you treasure me
Could win over the princes of my land
I might still build a home in the eyes of the Lord
Pay pence for that which we have done
I could do all these things
But it would have to be without a heart
For you carry it away with you
When the tides draw you out of my arms

So I sit in my time alone
A nightingale in her prime within a cage of gold
Your wealth ensures that I may never want
And your power that I may never face the harsh realities of our
Deeds in the garish light of day

In the depth of my loneliness
I grieve a young heart traded for comfort and borrowed companionship
I see my face in the mirror,
How it ages
When you return to me again
I will not share these feelings,
They come secondary to that which draws me close to you
My man of the sea
My borrowed lover