Dear _______, I can’t believe it’s been a year or so since I’ve seen you. It feels like I can bring you to my mind as if I just saw you yesterday, but it also feels like I haven’t been near you in years. I thought I should leave you alone unless you came to me. And I won’t blame you if you don’t. Ever. But these words need to be set free.
Hushed whispers in spring slumber. You watched the light on curves and valleys, clenched your teeth, crescent moons in your palms, the need to devour a roaring river. Azure lips and icicle splinters, dancing in the golden haze, though arrows pierced my ribs and thighs. The Devil gave me Twin Flaming shoes, taught me to love and to dance and to die. I wept because my feet were bloody slabs of meat, my body bowed with pain, and still I yearned for his belladonna kiss, still I hoped to impress him with my pirouettes, still I loved his hands and heart with me. I might have danced to death, might have leapt into his dagger arms, if you hadn’t come like a hopeful dawn.
I was desperate for something to ease the pain.
You with your tender touch, healing my broken body with daffodil bandages, yellow tulip tonics. I murmured his name in my sleep, woke to find lavender, not beryl, and slipped under a spell of dreams and Lethe streams. I was drowning in curses and tears, heartbreak, the echoes of a love I lost like accusatory reverberations; I screamed and screamed and screamed. You revived me with storms of adoration. You tasted like salt and honey. I arose, Aphrodite-like, came to you on poppy blooms, my oceanic irises – it made you quake. How could you resist my smoky voice, the way I trailed my coriander petal fingers in between the bones of your ribs, your heart a frantic bird within my supple hands?
I’m not proud of what I did. I’m not proud that I pushed you away. I shoved you out and shut down.
I let him in, again and again and again. I would not let you mark me with your teeth, the sparkling of larimar and pearls, the words you held back in vain. I gave you my roses, my sunflowers, my lotus blossom – I let you feast, yet you left starving. Could we not survive on laughter, sensuality? You, satyr-like, chased me as I playfully shrieked, growling in pain when I turned birch silver and magnolia pink. You ran your hands over bark, splayed fingers over sap and leaves, until I shivered – released. No one has ever had a hold on me for long. I wish I had told you that. I wish I knew why.
I’m still struggling with my desire to run, with my own issues and fears. I’m trying. I hope you’re ok. I miss you. I’ve probably said that a million times.
You were wounded in the battle with yourself, steel in your body, gashes and bruises. I wondered if I caused you this harm, perhaps a hex myself, and I stifled sobs in my fist. Murky water and weeping. Quiet looks. Shivering and aching. I took my noble steed and ran; I couldn’t give you what you never voiced, but which I saw in your gaze, every time you pressed your lips to mine with the kindness of a saint and the light of firefly forgiveness. I could feel the way you crushed my body to yours like a true-love-warrior, the way you ran a hand over my hair with a gentle sigh, the way you pierced my chest with your own emotional lacerations.
I know we’ll probably never talk again. But I hope you know, you’re in my thoughts and in my heart, always. I miss my friend.
Love, Woodnymph
I hope you find not war, but peace.
I hope you find love, not apathy.
I hope you’ve healed, wholly, without me.
Elisabeth Writing 