she would ask me to stay,
to lean down next to her
to hold her
she wanted me to be her refuge,
the impervious mantle his thoughts could never penetrate
she would ask me to stroke her hair, the way I always did when it rained
slowly I would brush away the tears, the anger, the insecurity
the clouds
soon, they would all be banished and
I would be running my fingers through God's book of poetry,
each strand a different page
each page a different miracle
and she would fall into a dream, into a world away from the world
a world where she was a princess,
a world where I was prince
and as she did, as she turned away from all that would harm her
she let her masks wash away into the darkness
and I would bathe in her delight
she would ask me to stay,
to give her strength,
to help her find herself,
to lift the weight he had thrown upon her,
so that the next day she could hold out a little longer
so that the next day she wouldn't feel the burden
and she wouldn't have to tell him no