i.
Our love dared not speak its name,
flowing in hushed whispers like a river
through the forest of our hearts; stolen
glances over notebooks, newspapers, and sins.
We danced around each other in this
spinning world, hiding in the twenty-six
s p a c e s
between my you and my first.
We waited around corners, in the
pouring London rain, fading into the
thick smog for for safety and cover
lest sodomites they discover.
O muse of mine, the Lord poet
whose likeness I knew I must
t r a n s c r i b e
and preserve forever
in the portrait of you I created,
in words and poems, in the safety of
characters I still keep as close to my heart
as we were,
between the sheets of Gomorrah’s
bed in this our city of
s
i
n.
ii.
The calling card he left, publicly,
to shame me as one to be deemed unfit,
indecent, wrong, had only one purpose:
to make the rest of the world detest.
The love we share, b’tween me and
you, they don’t believe to be true.
They twist their faith to try and make
us exist as they see fit.
It must be shown to be untrue, for
judgement will make my world
c
o
l
l
a
p
s
e
and he’ll make me lose you.
I had to call it defamation, to lie about
our loves intention. Hiding is what I do
best, it just makes sense to pretend,
that you are not all I crave.
If there’s one thing, that this experience
has taught, it’s that repression may be all
that we ought to share, and make sure
our hearts don’t need repair.
Our mistakes do not come
in yielding to our temptation,
they come in existing in a world
far too focused on
redemption.
iii.
We lost and now I must go
from you, do not mourn my
incarceration, for I shall always remain
exactly the same.
How can they ask me to not get
lost
in the beauty of your eyes, and
soul.
They used our story, our
beautiful madness, to destroy
happy thoughts of the
f u t u r e
that I can see fade away
from my view between the bars
of Pentonville Prison.
Previously published: Red Cedar Review
Emily Elizabeth Buckley 
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