when you leave me, i will hold no funeral i will bury our love in an unmarked grave safe from the crowds of mourners who only speak your name in vain i will barricade your honor under the tongue that never confessed behind the lips you never kissed inside the body that could not endure all the impossible things I longed for even when your body is long gone, i will protect your precious name like a soldier guarding his sovereign’s throne from a dozen pretenders’ claims i will build your monument in my own bones on a windswept moor i shall grieve alone in eternal vigil over our memories where your beauty will live immortally