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Language:
English
Series:
Part 9 of A Universe Where Iago Is More Willing To Wear His Heart On His Sleeve , Part 3 of Roderigo's Flights of Fantasy
Stats:
Published:
2024-04-17
Words:
410
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
1
Kudos:
4
Hits:
41

I will incontinently drown myself (Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death).

Summary:

Love requires sacrifice.

or

Roderigo's poem about loving and being loved.

Notes:

hAHA, back on my sad boi Roddy agenda, I PROMISE I WILL MAKE FLUFF FOR THE SAD BOI, REALLY, DON'T GET MAD AT ME-

(also, having trouble knowing who he's referring to in the first 6 lines? look at the relationship tags!)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

If I were to bleed pure gold, would you love me?

If I were to bleed a lion's crimson, would you love me?

If I were to bleed scathing charm, would you love me?

If I were to bleed a warrior's soul, would you love me?

If I were to bleed a flowery benevolence, would you love me?

If I were to bleed fine arithmetic, would you love me?

But I bleed none of those,
No,
I don't bleed any of those,
I don't bleed that which you value,
And so, I think,
I don't have any value,
Because it's not what you value,
So what value does that make me?
A zero, with a gaping, greedy hole in the middle?
A cross, a little lopsided, not meant for any saint?
A minus, for what about me isn't negative?

I would gladly bleed,
If it meant making any of you happy,
Today, I found myself thinking about which of my lands I should bury the waste in,
I need help,
But I won't ask for it,
What recompense would you receive?
You'd only get my bleeding heart,
That bleeds only the most common red blood,
Everyone bleeds red,
It's nothing new,
But at least theirs is a gifted sanguine,
While I hold my cut, shaky finger,
And all I see,
Is an indifferent red.

Indifferent from others,
Indifferent to how much it leaks from this wastrel.

I want to tell you how much I love you,
But I think it'd be too much of a burden on you,
You already deal with me,
And honestly?
It's both enough and not enough at the same time.

I think...
I think I am slowly going mad,
Like an insidious parasite eating away at my brain,
Till it leaves me a corpse,
Only capable of breathing and blinking,
The sunlight fighting to seep through the curtains,
And the dreamed embrace of the earth,
Are the only ways I can comfortably imagine myself being hugged,
Surely, Helios and Persephone are still generous to the wretched, no?
To allow me such luxuries,
Like warmth,
And the earth ready to digest me whole.

Even when I don't bleed coin,
Even when I don't bleed bravery,
Even when I don't bleed charisma,
Even when I don't bleed tenacity,
Even when I don't bleed virtue,
Even when I don't bleed sagacity,
The embrace of nightshade remains as darkly sweet as always.

In my pathetically foolish brain, at least.

Notes:

"My lord?" A servant knocks on the door to his room, and instinctively, Roderigo covers up his notebook, even though his servant, out of respect, wouldn't dare barge in and steal glances at it.

"Yes?" He prays the servant doesn't detect even the slightest trembling in his inflection through the door.

"Dinner is ready. Shall we serve it in your office or in the dining room?"

"I'll be down by 5 minutes. Do not wait on me."

"...if you say so, my lord."

Footsteps echo from his door to the opposite end of the hall.

Roderigo expunges a shaky sigh, one that crawls out slowly, like a centipede that's been digging and burrowing into him, its horrid legs clinging onto his weary bones and scraping his red, sore flesh.

"What...am I doing?" His eyes ghost over the words he had written in his feverish despair, "...I-I can't think of this...not right now..."

He tucks his notebook into his drawer, hidden beneath other trinkets and books meant to disguise, not alleviate, his madness...

"Of all days..." He gets up from his chair in a methodical fashion, with hardly any zest in even an inch of his muscles, "Of all days, why must it be now...?"

He steals one last look at the drawer before rushing away, out of the room, like the book would force itself out to freedom and pounce on him, like poison on his tongue and teeth.