09-10-2020, 11:19 PM
花
Flower
I'm only steady on my knees
If he is the culmination of all his dark and broken pieces, then she must be his counterpoint. She is the sum of all the love she has ever known, all the love she has ever been given. Made kind by the love of her parents who have protected her well from a world that would only see her hurt. Made brave by the way her brother gave her life, by the way he always heals her, by the way he heals more than just the fissures like rivers of still red across the surface of her skin.
She is made to be broken, born to die, and yet everyone she has ever known has given her a courage too big to fit inside her delicate body. A love so strong it erodes all the edges of her beautiful heart. She knows that if it ever becomes too much for her, a current that pulls her under to drown, there will be someone there to give her life again.
“You disappear sometimes.” She tells him so softly, her golden eyes like lanterns in the hazy dimness of early morning. “You’re here, but you aren’t here with me.” Her lips are cool and gentle when she pushes his forelock aside so she can better watch his eyes. They are so expressive, with as much depth as any ocean, and she doesn’t think he knows how to keep his secrets out of them. At least not completely, and she is glad for that. Without these glimpses she wonders if she would ever truly know him at all.
She can feel him tense when she says she cannot stay forever, and that surprises her too. He feels like stone at her back, and when she turns to lift her small ruby face to him, she can trace vivid lines of tension across the brown and white of his strong jaw. The fact that his eyes stay quiet tells her that he doesn’t want her to know how her answer had affected him. So she doesn’t mention what she has seen in him, just reaches out again this time to press her delicate head into the curve of his throat and beneath his jaw, eyes closed in trust.
“I would miss my family if I never went back to them.” She tells him, and she knows her breath must tickle his skin with lukewarm heat but she does not pull away. “But I wouldn’t have to miss them very long because someone would come looking.” She smiles fondly at that. “And I would return to them happily because I love them.” But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t come too. She wonders if he’ll ask that next, because she thinks her answer would be yes.
But he says something that makes her smile, fills her delicate chest with a laughter that feels warm and almost exultant. She leans back and lifts her face to look at him again, her golden eyes sparkling. “Yes I am very convincing.” She agrees, and she loves the way he gives her this, allows her to feel as bold as her claims. “I’ve even been called bossy before but I’m pretty sure they were wrong.” Her twinkling eyes dare him to disagree.
But then the mood shifts again and she exhales slowly, turning her gaze to look out across the shining water. “Forever is a long time.” She agrees, and there is a new weight in her voice as the burden of that truth settles itself more heavily over her twinkling shoulders. “I don’t think I have a forever,” she muses, looking down at her own legs all full of divots and cracks, “do you?” Her eyes find him again, but the light has gone gently from them.
She is made to be broken, born to die, and yet everyone she has ever known has given her a courage too big to fit inside her delicate body. A love so strong it erodes all the edges of her beautiful heart. She knows that if it ever becomes too much for her, a current that pulls her under to drown, there will be someone there to give her life again.
“You disappear sometimes.” She tells him so softly, her golden eyes like lanterns in the hazy dimness of early morning. “You’re here, but you aren’t here with me.” Her lips are cool and gentle when she pushes his forelock aside so she can better watch his eyes. They are so expressive, with as much depth as any ocean, and she doesn’t think he knows how to keep his secrets out of them. At least not completely, and she is glad for that. Without these glimpses she wonders if she would ever truly know him at all.
She can feel him tense when she says she cannot stay forever, and that surprises her too. He feels like stone at her back, and when she turns to lift her small ruby face to him, she can trace vivid lines of tension across the brown and white of his strong jaw. The fact that his eyes stay quiet tells her that he doesn’t want her to know how her answer had affected him. So she doesn’t mention what she has seen in him, just reaches out again this time to press her delicate head into the curve of his throat and beneath his jaw, eyes closed in trust.
“I would miss my family if I never went back to them.” She tells him, and she knows her breath must tickle his skin with lukewarm heat but she does not pull away. “But I wouldn’t have to miss them very long because someone would come looking.” She smiles fondly at that. “And I would return to them happily because I love them.” But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t come too. She wonders if he’ll ask that next, because she thinks her answer would be yes.
But he says something that makes her smile, fills her delicate chest with a laughter that feels warm and almost exultant. She leans back and lifts her face to look at him again, her golden eyes sparkling. “Yes I am very convincing.” She agrees, and she loves the way he gives her this, allows her to feel as bold as her claims. “I’ve even been called bossy before but I’m pretty sure they were wrong.” Her twinkling eyes dare him to disagree.
But then the mood shifts again and she exhales slowly, turning her gaze to look out across the shining water. “Forever is a long time.” She agrees, and there is a new weight in her voice as the burden of that truth settles itself more heavily over her twinkling shoulders. “I don’t think I have a forever,” she muses, looking down at her own legs all full of divots and cracks, “do you?” Her eyes find him again, but the light has gone gently from them.
I’ll run the risk of being intimate with brokenness