i breathe lifetimes | vkook

1990

O6 february .

darling azalea,

      if I could stand at the crossroads of birth and death, it'd be a fatal distinction between your eyes which bore the life in me and your lips which filled me with indefinite dignity.

      my love, do utter my name in chaste indulgence. I so often ponder what it would be like to drown in your voice and have my melancholy melt away to your every caress.

      I want you to own me. hold me. take me away. so very far away that I may never desire of capturing a day without you again. so that I may never forget you – though how ridiculous of me, I know I cannot – not even in moments when I'd so badly wish to disintegrate on my own.

      if I should combust due to unfortunate spontaneity, let me die in flames of your grace. let me become the dust that powder your arms as I become one with the air. let me live in the crevices of your window panes so that I may wait patiently and watch my worries wane.

      unknowingly, you feed the gentle monster inside me. it grows with every twist of your lips and touch of your palms. I've grown rather cautious so as not to perturb you. but I am not me when you love me this way.

      who am I to carry your trust? who am I to earn your concern?

      but of course, I am merely a daydream you once had. I am the nostalgia bending with the sunlight of your sunday afternoons. I am the dew drips that have made it on the tips of your shoes. I am the memory you cannot recall on dreadful morning classes. I am the ghost of your unnamed sadness.

       talk to me without speaking a word, when you hum tunes that don't exist in cassettes. I will carry your melody with me across universes you may not have known existed.

     oh, my love, my life, my darling azalea, I heed you as I always do. for onwards and eternity.

     please never let go of me.

—zinnia