One more morning mourning among the sycamores west of the city where the leafy silence echoes the lonesome song of my soul. Oft do I come to this place, with turbulent thoughts to think. Thoughts I dare not share with even my dearest fellows, the rash and rugged Mercutio, who finds an icy edge of humor in all things, and good Romeo, my cousin and friend. Mercutio thinks not at all on the softer emotions, while Romeo thinks on them far too deeply.
In truth, until now I have been much the same as Mercutio. My doings with the fairer sex have been breathtaking and brief, magnificent and momentary. I promise nothing, and no female hath ever had the courage to require otherwise. I am told it is partly my eyes, which (to my
disgust) are generally likened to a fawn’s, and my smile, which I have heard these same ladies call crooked and disarming. Oh, I did learn quickly to use that smile to my best advantage, as a means to coax e’en the most demure maiden into bestowing her charms upon me.
Alas, this tactic hath become somewhat old. And empty.
Among the sycamores, I find the honesty to admit that of late my long-hidden heart seems as filled with longing as ever was the impetuous Romeo’s.
God help me, I want to be in love. Would that I knew how.
I have tried, tried much, to fall into the state. And I have, on occasion, stumbled near to it, and soon thereafter tumbled … but a tumble is far removed from love. And as much as certain ladies wished to catch me falling, ’twas with scarcely a glance backward that I took my leave of them.
And still these ladies, when they greet me in the square, seem more than willing to allow me a second chance. Regrettably, there is not one among them that inspires me toward anything permanent. Mayhap if one of them, upon my cool exit, had demanded that I stay. But no. Every last one did lower her lovely eyes and allow me to leave. And so I did.
Long did I consider myself lucky to be so unbound by expectations.
But now such empty departures leave me wanting more.
Now in the distance, I sense movement, a gentle bowing of ferns and the rustle of low branches.
Someone comes.
I conceal myself behind the broad trunk of an ancient tree and look.
A man approaches. The pale glow of sunrise surrounds him, glinting off his hair. But e’en the breaking dawn cannot brighten this fellow’s general aura of gloom.
No wonder. ’Tis Romeo.
Romeo here, in this veiled grove, accepting the morning as it spills in slanted ribbons of light upon the leaves, refracting the joy of it in his own despondent prism.
Romeo is sulking. Romeo is heartsick.
Romeo is nothing if not predictable.
In spite of my own troubled mind, I smile. Such a pair are we. Two youthful men in our prime, skulking about at sunrise, he all too willing to address his heartache, I compelled to deny mine exists. I believe he glimpses me in the periphery of his gaze. He does not call out, nor wave, nor even turn. Instead, he steals into shadow.
What is that he holds? A sheath of fresh-picked blossoms, though looking worse for wear. Lilies, their petals bent and torn. With a silent chuckle, I imagine how he’s come to carry such a beaten bouquet. He holds it tightly to his breast, and I surmise that surely, earlier this morn, he saw fit to offer them to a lady who refused the tender token of his love. Knowing my good cousin as I do, I
would not be surprised if he continues to clutch those stems until they rot within his grasp.
And with grim resignation I confess to myself that if only the right lady threw lilies back at me, I would likely do the same.