Would you keep the letters, and memories?
Amaranthus flowers drooping over a crystal vase, fingers shaking, because love lies bleeding and I have it in a glass. Young raven wings tremble. One ebony feather drifting down to rest, I wonder if these wings will still fly, if I try. Is it will I try, or when? I like the skies, how they hold me weightless even as I try to collect the stars in a jar. I need the light. The dark breathes your name, sometimes in crooning murmurs that stroke my cheek, and sometimes in throaty growls that make me, fearful, shake. I wish I had a letter to read in the shadows, words that glow with moonlit love and silver prose. Would you?
When we kissed under flying petals, laughing in spring time adoration, I wondered if you could feel my heart spill into your hands. I wondered if you’d crush it, like those magnolia petals gone brown and crumpled, under nature’s priestess and human hands. And here I am, using them to make a poem, wishing you’d know the language of my soul, and what I want most. Here I am afraid to write the truth, afraid to ask you, hoping you’ll understand my language of flowers, the red roses in my tea and cakes, because I’m too afraid to ask, to hold out the bouquet. I want to write a poem, a sonnet, a ballad, for you. But I’m fearful of your daffodil offerings, and so I’m too afraid to write it down, to speak. Still, I want to lose myself in our Heliotrope blooms.
That movie, the letters and lovers, and my tears soaking the duvet. It took 60 years to get their chance, to close their eyes and dream a little dream, to open their hearts to one another. Would you remember me after all that time? Would you hoard the letters and photos, trace a finger over my generous smile, feel that earthquake of loss, that hurricane of sorrow, that tornado of grief? Would you ache, decades later, for me? If you love me, let’s pledge under the rainbow, in a gentle summer sun shower. Let me kiss you and pour my soul into those arching colors. We made that heavenly arc, you know; with my storm and your spring. But – and lean in close dear one, I’ll only say it once – let me go if you wonder, even a bit, if I’m the one you’d remember. If I’m not the one who could tear your whole world asunder. If I’m not the one who could remake it, better, with manic pixie dreams and harmonious lullaby melodies.
Darling, what did you carve in this shell you found? Were there secret spells in the engravement? Did you whisper your mysteries? Is it only me, with my codes and ciphers, and you a thief listening to the pin tumblers? What if I set the letters on fire, and what if I already collected the crematory ash of phantom lovers, tossed them in the bridge below me, asking the water to take them to the sea? What are you looking for? I’m so damn good at holding back, whispering truth to eidolon effigies, breathing petals into hearts that never beat. It was easier, watching them disintegrate, watching them wander, watching them leave.
I’ve got this rose quartz nestled by my chest, wondering if it will crack or we ascend. My sweet love, take this apple, and let’s watch dawn break in the isle, hands clasped, while the birds sing my words in harmony. Can you hear the declaration? I wish you would. I wish you wouldn’t. I am a swan once I touch the water, becoming one with aching skies and murmuring rivers, my hands slipping, yours gripping. Come, love, and choose. Come love, and become, with me.
Or you can watch me fly, fly high and free.
Elisabeth Writing 