crusade (poem)

valentine #2: there would be martyrs for a smile like that.

Welcome to the second Vlnt Valentine of the month! This is just a fun little project I came up with to diversify my writing for the month of February! Today’s poem is a reworked poem from undergrad. If you missed the first poem, you can find it here:

eurydice, backwards (poem)

The Accolade. Edmund Blair Leighton, 1901.

The original version of this poem was written about eight years ago for an undergrad project and, to me, always felt quite unfinished. I’ve put off playing with it for years because I was never quite sure how to round it out. I finally decided to give it a go this month and turned it into a very loosely structured sonnet (fourteen lines, ten syllables each). I like this version quite a bit better than the original. I hope you like it too!

crusade

if women were known for holy wars there 
would be martyrs for a smile like that. 
i'd give up any god and fall on any 
blade as long as i landed at your feet.
lesser men have killed by the thousands for 
lesser causes. the greeks all for helen, 
the crusaders all for the holy land,
alexander all for his own glory. 
then why not i for you? why sheath my heart?
i am no fighter, but how could i be 
a pacifist for this? for this. for this.
so regardless if love be religion
or each man's fatalest of flaws, listen,
i'll damn myself to heaven all for you.

---

violent ends is a completely free publication! the best thing you can do to support my work is to share it with others and interact with it. if you want to go the extra mile, you can also use my link to buy me a coffee.