You've Rendered Me Prickly My Dear

Maybe once I would've told you this,
but now- you've rendered me prickly my dear,
all rough surfaces and awkward angles
and I know nothing good can come of telling, now.

You held my hand and guided me, and it's silly
but now it seems a hand is still holding my own
but this time it's severed, a solid but hollow presence,
like trying to drink from an empty carton of milk.

Have I outgrown my mentor? Overstayed my welcome?
All the bumps we've had, I bounced right over,
A little tougher each time, a little softer for you.

I'm not going to tell you this, but you're my Achilles heel, the sword in my stone,
And there is, after all, only one Paris, only one King Arthur.
I've done it haven't I, practically called you my knight in shining armor. There's a classic sort of beauty in fairy tales, after all.

You know my secrets. That doesn't appeal to a man;

And you, you can start anew- I can too-
And when, if you do, you'll love as well as you know to,
And it may all be the same-
But the stone didn't grow another sword, and Achilles died.

So you see, there are many lives to be had (and I know that),
and now I am prickly surfaces and graceless pride,
a stolid sum of insistant stregnth
But it's bittersweet. The stone remembers its sword.