Innocence

She is approximately 15 years older than me, I know this, and yet I also know that this gap -  it means nothing. I don' know what this is, I don't  know how this is, yet the fact remains, I love her. I am a child in her eyes. She tells me she loves me, she touches my hand, my neck, the crook of my back, and I never want her to stop, but she turns away in guilt -  manipulation of a child. Perhaps it is because she knows my past, or maybe that has nothing to do with it at all, but she steadfastly insists that she is taking advantage of me; she is not. I know what that feels like, I know the pain of innocence stolen; the simple fact is I have no innocence left, none for her to take advantage of. I am as much sinful as she, more so I believe because it is I who insists she continue on while knowing the torture I'm causing her, causing myself, and in the end I do not care, I cannot care, I only can feel.           

I need this woman with all that I am; I love her with all that I will be. She is my life, my reason for existence, and yet I can never tell her; I am selfish. She feels pain and I demand she feel more, she feels regret and I insist she deepen this feeling of sorrow. I have not told her I love her, though she insists that she does me. I am too afraid, scared, so frightened that it is all a ruse, that maybe, despite what I know, she is like the others, using me. But then I realize that is why she tells me of her love, unspecified though it may be, to quell my fear; it will never be enough.           

I need her to tell me she would give up the world for me because I know that I would in a heartbeat for her. She is confused, this I know in the depths of my soul because I am confused too. I have never felt this passion, this longing, and though she's had many lovers before me where I have had no one else, I see in her movements, in her body, she is scared of this passion too; her eyes provide the truth, her touch provides the answer.     

Never has she kissed me just as I am sure that never she will. For all her strength and passion this simple act could decimate her entire existence; too much. It is enough to know she wishes, it is enough to know she desires me, and yet in the depths of my new found soul I know this to be false. I know I can go no longer for I know my Captain will leave this Bridge of our love and I, in turn, shall fade away into this collective of officers, disposable as a drone bending to her Queen, throwing away life for the good of her mistress.