Tell me my dear Hesphaistian

Tell me my dear Hephaestion.

The peaceful look upon your pale grey face, the sweat upon your brow not yet dried, if those eyes of yours were to open and those scabbed lips to breathe life again; could you tell me honest and true, that you still remember?

Or shall I remain seated next to your bed here in Babylon, the greatest conqueror the world has ever known… completely and inexplicably unable to let go of your hand that cools, as my heart cools alongside it.

I remember now and shall never forget.

For what am I without you? I cannot be Alexander without Hephaestion. I cannot be great any longer. I cannot be at all. Already I sit here a crumbling skeleton of wayward bones, as my organs fall away, nothing but dust that fades away as ash in the wind.

My mother, the sanctimonious whore, with snakes about her face like Medusa, has told me to shed my tears as if it were so simple. If only I could look into those eyes and turn to stone and not have to face the idea that you can no longer remember, can no longer touch me or whisper into my ear as you once did…

I know, just as I know Apollo shall lift the sun into the sky, that without you, I would never have had the courage to challenge Darius, or the will to have spent such long years exploring forests where the Gods dropped poisonous snakes into our eyes. Those places, where the rain was ceaseless as it puddled at our feet and continued till it reached our knees.

You once told me dear Hephaestion, that I was your sun. You told me as you slipped the ring onto my finger, a trinket you found in Egypt you said… and as you looked with those blue eyes that are as intense as ice, as your knotted hair caught in my fingers, I was so happy that for a moment I truly felt like I could be the son of Zeus.

But now your words shall never again pass through air, those vibrations that flow from your tongue, they will not reach me again.

I humbly wish to thank you Hephaestion, those words will never ever leave me. They shall exist forever inside my head, forever inside my skull as this weeping body disintegrates and descends down into misery.

It is the truth that now, as my heart breaks, so does my body, and it is upon another journey that now I must depart. My journey, down into Hades…

“But when men lie together, and knowledge and virtue are passed between, that is pure and excellent… this is the love between men that can build a city-state.”

Those words spoken by Aristotle, as we were boys have never left me. I remember looking into your eyes, Alexander and from then onward it was a gift forever emblazoned in my minds eye.

It is an honesty with which I fight you, an honesty which we share, an honesty that I can never keep from you and an honesty I know will bring out the best in you.

We have yet a long way still, as you prepare for battle against Persia. You have such passion in you; I only wish it were a drug I could administer straight to my lungs, to have that brilliance that burns brighter even than Achilles’ to run through my blood.

I simply wish to know you.

For still, even as kids, even as we lay together, my eyes are blurred and my toes numb, for surely this is a dream?

No one knows you like I do Alexander, not even yourself and it is fascinating to me.

The men see you as a God, for it is you that will bring this victory and it is you that shall reap the rewards of your courage; to yell out and initiate change. It is you that shall amaze me, as you become King of Asia.

But you are not a God, just like Achilles you are an extraordinary man and to me can only be described as Alexander.

And just as Patroclus, I am to stand at your side ever more and watch over your human indiscrepancies, watch over your arrogance and your pride. It is together we journey, and it cannot be done otherwise.

I shall stay with you as we grow old, and watch as your vision pours forth from your head and splashes out into reality with each step you take…

It is into your ear that I whispered I love you, and it is into your heart that I hope it catches, and that you remember, as I shall never forget.

And just as Patroclus at Troy, the cruel God’s shall honour fate and take me to row into Hades before you, but all I wish to know… is that you shall remember me.