A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

I still try to hold compassion for the girl you fooled. 

I try to focus less on how she believed some of your lies, 
and made excuses for others. Instead I celebrate her growth.

He tells me it is a shame she was not seen by you, 
and that simple line encompasses so much:
empathy for her pain, and acknowledgement of her worth.
He sees things you could not, would not.
He knows what I now know: you may have fooled her
but the fool is you.

I’ll not waste time (now)
wondering if you’ll ever realise what you lost. 
It matters not 
whether you grieve her.
If Echo could not turn Narcissus from his reflection,
then even the greatest of mere mortals
would waste breath trying,
and you’ve wasted enough of mine already. 

You overlooked the beauty of the heart she trusted you to hold in your hands. 
You crushed it, drained it of life-blood, 
trampled it, and cremated its remains with the flame of a gaslight,
sweeping the ashes of your crimes under rugs of illusion,
waiting for the audience to applaud your sleight of hand.

The mythology is due a rewrite. 
(let me get my pen)
On the river bank where once Echo faded, a diminishing voice, 
lost in hopeless love for one too lost in love of self,
I now step forward to offer the audience of assembled pilgrims
a fresher take on your jaded tricks.  Has even one of them
ever wondered why his pride should be rewarded 
with the immortal beauty of a golden flower? 

In my version, the nymph becomes the floral beauty.
As she blooms (ever the phoenix), her voice
does not suffer signal loss, but is amplified,
and she has no need of my compassion. 
Unlike the ancients, she is not bound
to tell her stories within the confines of dactylic hexameter.
She is Queen of her own prosody, a force 
of nature, wielding her power with grace,
reclaiming her role as author (not merely protagonist) of this narrative.