Arthur Tudor dreamed of Camelot, on the night before he died.

They say he died in his wife’s arms, though that is just another lie. In truth she never loved him at all. In truth she was willing to marry his younger brother, eager even, in order to do her duty by God and keep her own birthright claim to England alive. In truth she cared more for power than for her husband, the first one, the husband history forgot as being too boring to care about.

I wonder if you thought that I found you too boring to care about. I wonder if you thought I would prefer your imaginary younger brother, the redhead with the leer and the swagger and the tendency to cut his wives’ heads off. I wonder if you think that’s the kind of man I’m looking for. I wonder if you believe I value anything higher than love, and if so, don’t you know me at all?

You are not too boring to care about, and neither am I. I am the girl you thought you could love, before I was the girl who blew it all up. I am the girl who left your heart screaming and I am the girl you decided to hate long before you ever met me.

It is not my fault that you were born with a dick between your legs instead of a hole. It is not my fault the things they taught you that having a dick meant; it is not my fault that you grew up hating yourself because you could desire and when you were finally old enough to get the things you thought you needed to survive, the hot girls and hotter cars, you went after them full force. You drove past me at blinding speed and I stayed there blinking, staring at you, waiting for you to come back to me.

I waited a long time for you. I waited for half of forever, stooped down beside the creek as I got older, as my shoulders bent inward, as my spine learned to curve, and my hands learned to drop half of what I tried to juggle. The grains of sand sifted from between my toes and all that was left was Time, and me, caught up in an abyss staring at one another, daring the other to blink first.

Time and I are the best of friends. Time has long black hair and the thick-lashed blue eyes that I have always wanted, until I looked in the mirror one day and realized they were already mine. You are the boy that I have always wanted, who likes all the  things that I like, who will hold my hand and pull me forcibly out of the disaster my life has become. Who as the world crashes down around us in a screaming vein of wreckage, will love me together anyway. Will love me whole, because something has to survive the wreckage. It is not going to be us, but it can be some part of us, and love will be that part.

Somewhere there is a museum and there is a boy, and that boy is crying. Somewhere there is a girl and she has her arms around that boy and they’re not talking, because every time they try to talk something goes wrong, language goes wrong, and nothing is left but ashes. Still they are in there, on the floor, the two of them, holding each other. Somewhere you are holding me, somewhere you know how to hold me, and you don’t feel like you have to hold me together in order to deserve to touch me.

I am still hiding in the reeds, maybe. I am still trapped behind a plexiglass wall and your arms are still wrapped around your own shoulders. There are still girls between us, lots of them. Boys walk up to me and they flirt with me and what am I supposed to do? I flirt back like I think you’d want me to, and then the milk curdles in my belly and I throw up. Or, I say no to them, I go home alone, while you go home not alone, and then I curl my arms around the shape of myself and cry and cry.

Call it the penalty of being female. I ask for sex and I am automatically the enemy; I ask someone else for sex, I am the enemy in a different way, a new kind of enemy -- whore in virgin form. I was not a virgin, when I met you, but I had never had sex with a man. I thought you would want me more if I had, but I thought you would appreciate me more for being so pure. I said, “every guy believes in the virgin/whore paradox,” and I was talking about us, don’t you know that? I was always talking about us.

I’ve already been silent, stayed small, tried to be pure. I wanted you so badly but I did not know what you wanted from me. I don’t want to give up what I want to be what someone else wants instead. I will not do it again. Not even for you.

I will not re-enter the sea of trees and so I watch you from the edge of nowhere., You watch me from the other side of the world. I stare at your face, you stare at my photographs. No need to talk to each other ever again, except one day we are going to die and then what are you going to say to me, when neither of us has anywhere left to hide?

On the night he died, Arthur Tudor dreamed of Camelot. I wonder if you’ll dream of me.