Sometimes, poetry is not enough. There are so many words. I hate to crowd the poems with them. I know they enjoy their precision.
So a letter, then. Not penned but, felt, at least.
There are a great few people I become instantly bonded with. Often it takes time, or effort, or circumstance. Context, by another name. There must be an addition for any equation to occur at all.
But then there are the magical ones. Those beings slightly-to-wholly outside this natural realm. Instantaneous. Ratified. Deified.
And so you too, joined their ranks.
It was like speaking to a spirit of the forest, who had decided to stop by and compliment a poem of mine. The breeze of happenstance guiding my words to your limbs. Weeks later, I wanted more of that reaction, and you said you had felt that we would speak that night.
From this moment I think, we created our space. Any and all thoughts could be shared and no judgement passed.
It was then that I adored you. And, for a time, you adored me as well.
It pains me to skip over so much of that. The photos and the voice notes. The reassurance, and the understood silence. The songs, dear love the songs…you had told me, no music had come to you as of late. And so I sent along a favorite, and then any new melody to grace me that carried a piece of you with it. I returned them to you, and you received them with warmth.
Which is odd for you, as you will often say. The warmth expressed from such a cold girl. One who derives her poems from the sun, rather than the moon as with many of us poets. It is because you are truly so bright, yet deep within you is the river of time. You know the cold and distant truth of the sun’s eventuality. The last light, the final loneliness. The cold of a star unborn. This is the chill, living within you. Knowledge, deep and unbound by knowing itself.
I would go on to meet you. It would begin with the greatest magic. The sharing that caused you such impatience, the closeness I had craved. A perfect weekend. One which i think, for a time, neither of us desired to end.
“I am worried,” you said, “that when I leave here, I will leave you emotionally as well.”
It sent me into a panic. I was not able to be myself any longer, for you had touched the very fear that grips me most of any. That of abandonment. Which is another bond of ours—my being abandoned, your abandoning. Both of us, afraid. Both hurt.
“It hurts me too.”
You say that you cannot reciprocate. For a spell, a small and aching spell, this was untrue. For you did, dearest doe. You said you felt it toward me too, though you were confused by it. More than that you expressed it so firmly.
“Send me a picture of your breakfast tomorrow. Even if it is not pretty, okay?”
Seven words. So many sevens of words.
I think you thought there was possibility, then.
Now I am here. An undertone of apprehension with each day that passes. Wondering if it will be the last of your words, your “heart” reactions to messages, photos, videos.
It helped that I became angry. At your acceptance of another’s arms after departing me. Anger intrigues you. As did the first time you missed me. As if intrigue is the closest you can get.
I do not know what will come, as the days pass. The cold turns to warm turns to cold. I do not know if your nature will ever have you back in my arms, in my home(ah, but let us not speak of home, for it makes me pine for you all the more), on our bench.
I have continued in my own way. To express my feelings and my beauty to you. You have pulled back, certainly. Feeling most close when there is a bit of that warm poison coursing through you.
Ah, and i look at the mountains now. How i would love to see your eyes upon them. How i would love to take you dancing. To have you, too, read *my* favorite book.
To reciprocate.
As it has been established twice over now, emotions have their own little lives, and should be allowed to fly free. So I have let my own, and they have, dearest doe. They do not bring back heartening messages from their journey to you, but they do fly. Despite their tears they are joyous to fly. It is enough for them, to be free.
For them. But I am greedy.
I remember your dancing eyes when you asked how long you should stay. “When should I leave,” were your words. But your eyes. “Shall I leave now? Or never?” Asking me as much as they were asking you. But not just you. The deep nature of you.
“Is this, home?”
Though fear is something I enjoy to face, this one is something new. I am allowed to feel as I feel, with the “knowledge” that you will never return it. With the knowledge that you did, shortly. The knowledge that there are pieces of you who want to. That the whole of you is overly capable.
How? I do not know. As said within an unsent poem—“i do not know these things/I just feel them.”
“If today is the last,” I will often steel myself, “then so be it. We will have shared beauty, and we will have enjoyed it.” Sometimes it works. Sometimes.
I feel the distance of you these days so strongly that it pains to acknowledge. But perhaps that is the lesson for me. That I must, i simply must acknowledge these things when I feel them. Not avoid them for fear of their existence. For they will exist all the same.
In my heart I have hope, though. And you were right. You cannot tell me how to hope. I shall do so of my own accord. Sharing our space. Sending you words. Missing you. Tempting you with snowfall. Until at last you return to me.
And hey—that, i think….a return? That would be something new for the both of us.
wishfinger 