The light of my life and the fire of my loins,
A sin that is minted in sorrowful coins.
Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking flight,
To tap on the teeth in a tripod of night.
I, Humbert the cultured, the broken, the vain,
Arrived in New England to harvest my pain.

I rented a room from the widow named Haze,
And found the sweet terror that darkened my days.
For there in the garden, a sun-flooded scene,
Sat the ghost of Annabel, my lost, early queen.
A nymphet of twelve with a mocking young smile,
Who captured my spirit and mocked my exile.

I married the mother, a desperate design,
To keep the young daughter permanently mine.
But fate stepped inside with a sudden, swift car,
That left Charlotte dead on the asphalt afar.
I packed up the bags and I gathered the prize,
With guilt in my heart and the spark in my eyes.

[…]

We lived in the motels of neon and rust,
A journey of shadows, of fever, and lust.
From Bayside to Kasbeam, the highway spun wide,
With a captive young goddess asleep by my side.
I fancied myself as the master of play,
But Humbert was merely a beast in her way.

She hated my money, she loathed my embrace,
A cynical wisdom on such a young face.
And someone was following, out in the dark,
A phantom who watched every stop of our arc.
At the hospital bed where she suffered her chill,
She vanished completely, defying my will.

For three bitter years did the emptiness grow,
Through towns without names in the rain and the snow.
Until a brief letter arrived at my door:
She was married, and poor, and a nymphet no more.
I found her in shack-lands, a woman with child,
Her look was exhausted, her spirit defiled.

[…]

She wanted no riches, she wanted no tears,
Just dollars to settle her oncoming years.
I begged her to come, but she softly said no,
“The game is all over, so let it all go.”
She told me the name of the shadow who took her:
’Twas Quilty, the playwright, who used and forsook her.

I tracked him right down to his mansion of stone,
And slaughtered the monster entirely alone.
A chaotic ballet of the bullets and lead,
Until the dark mirror of Humbert lay dead.
In the cell of the prison, I pick up my pen,
To conjure the girl of the motels again.

The judges may sentence, the gavel may fall,
But art is the fortress that outlasts us all.
I write for the ages, to keep her secure:
Lo, vibrant and deadly, immortal and pure.