KING
Some days I look out at the sky
and clasp my chest as this frost
creeps over my heart
and I forget the words
I'm supposed to say
Like an actor on stage
before an audience
that hangs upon an
unfinished line

I can feel your eyes
searching me,
looking for some
ray of light
splitting
this ice block that I
dare call my heart

Am I supposed to say
"I love you?"

But my mouth can only
speak to you with perfect
silence, and hope that you
will understand:

I am all grown up now.
I am all grown up now
and you are not.
I am a leader, I am a husband,
I am older, I am an adult-

And you?
Don't make me laugh.

You are not.
You are still stuck at age thirteen,
but yet you say that you are a senior.
And I am not.
You are a speck in society, you are a friend at best,
you are young, and you are naive.
And I am not.

Me?
I have moved on since last my heart
felt so deeply for you.
I have waged war since last I would have
thrown myself to the gallows to save you,
I have remarried since I held you in my arms,
and told you I wanted to belong to you.

And still I forget the words
which I had first meant to say.
Perhaps because I had never meant to say them
and had only meant to tell you what I have
thus said.

FRIEND
But don't you get it?
Some days I also look at the sky
and I wonder
if you're looking up
at the same one
and thinking of me
the way I'm thinking of you
and if you wonder

"how's she doing?
what's she feeling?
is she happy?
is she thinking of me?"

And when I look at those stars
and see them shining
with that light that reaches
from beyond the vast distances of space,
I know you're still the same.

Do you know that even after a
star dies, it's light still reaches Earth
thousands of years after its fading?

That's how I know
that beneath everything,
underneath the snow,
underneath the ice,
that you're still the same.

That even though you're older,
and even though you're a leader,
somewhere you still love
to walk in gardens
and ride ferris wheels.
That you still like
to watch cartoons
and sit in trees
and draw flowers
and write poetry

And even though your heart has turned to ice-
that's okay
because there's still a piece of you
safe inside of my own heart,
hidden,
and still beating.

KING
Do you hear yourself?
How ridiculous you sound!
Do you not understand that I cannot feel?
Not for you- not for anyone!

Never again for you! Especially not for  you!

It's all your fault!
Had ever you wanted honour,
Had ever you wanted credit,
If you had wanted power-
here it is!

You have crushed me!
You have taken everything!
You have broken me, stabbed me,
struck me, scarred me, and damned me!
You have left me with nothing
but my worthless body, which even that
I gave to you
so many times!
And in my loneliness
I feel you against me,
I can remember when I felt your heart
beat softly against my chest,
when your hands graced my face,
when I could pull your lips to mine
and keep you there
for what seemed like days.

I can remember you lying exhausted
beside me, sleeping silently-
as I watched you with tears in my eyes,
never comprehending
how I was worthy
of the wonder and the beauty that was mine!
I feel you in everything I have in me!

And what did you think I would do
when you had gone from me?
I rather would have died the way that
so many of my race have-
But being with you had cursed me ever still
with something near a human heart,
And my damned heart
could not withstand this pain;
I could not live with your love in my memories!
But this pain,
although immense,
although enormous,
although it was enough
to cripple the very stars from the sky as it were...
it would not give me the precious gift
that would be my death!

FRIEND
Stop!
Don't you think that I suffered too?
Don't you think that I spent nights
crying over losing you?
Over losing the person I loved most,
over the person I knew I had failed to protect
against his parents,
against my brother,
against The World?
The person that I had failed to bring happiness?
Don't you think that maybe on more than one occasion
I thought of jumping
out my window
and onto the lawn
in a heap of broken bones,
a broken heart?

You were my first love!
You were everything I lived for,
and for the sake of being with you I let
myself be taken from my parents,
I let you ignore me and hate me,
I let you hate my friends and hate everything
that was me,
because I loved you!
Because I love you!
I let myself be humiliated by your race,
I let myself be beaten in a town square,
and I forgive you.
I still forgive you.
Even when you had hardly ever
apologized to me, even once.

But we're still the same!
We'll always be the same!


KING
You're disgusting!
How can you say that!
I would never want to share
in your likeness again!
As King, I demand you keep a promise
and do not break it!:
Do not ever come back.
Do not ever speak to me anymore!
Do not ever look at me.
Do not ever acknowledge me!

I never wish to encounter you again!
  
FRIEND
Fine. I won't do any of those things.

KING
Then I am glad we are at last in agreement.

FRIEND
But know this-

KING
And what is that?

FRIEND
I'll do what you say.
I won't come back.
I won't speak to you anymore.
I won't look at you.
I won't acknowledge you-

KING
Wonderful.

FRIEND
-But you have to know...

that I am more loyal than
any of your subjects-
more than your chancellors,
more than your princes,
your barons.
Because I'll even entreat you
by not doing some more things.

Because,
My King,
My Lord,
...
My Love:

I promise...

I won't ever forget you.
I won't ever harm you.
I won't ever decieve you.

But most importantly,
before I walk away,
and we never speak again,
you must know:

That as long as I live,
I promise

that I will never,

ever,
                                                       stop loving you.