INFLORESCENCE

blue bell

...part two

REASSURANCE SEEMS like a reminder.
hugs of welcome suddenly goodbyes and my companion is leaving— they are leaving and i am left helpless.
we rage in wars, spears raised to the heavens as our battle cries sound like a symphony, where your laughter is my lullaby, where your voice only adds to the sinfonietta of tranquility. the longbows shoot high, and we dodge as they plummet and my eyes draw away in search of yours but— you aren't there.

and then it hits me, an arrow of dripping gold as it mixes with my iron blood and a choke invades and a splutter and a cry— the pain so horrendous, but not because i am wounded, because i still haven't found you. you are lost in the sea of bodies and i am drowning. i am suffocating on the inevitable and the tears of my goodbyes close on me whole as my head goes below the surface of the red seas and the metals of my armor weigh me down. i see light cease then, and your hand reaches but i am lost, i am deep, and my body is far too weak to reach your own.

you leave, my heart, my other half, me.
you are me, i am you, we are nothing and everything. we dance through the heavens as stars freckle on inky skies, we swim in the seas as the sun tans our skins and feel the sands scrap against our veneers when our laughter rings and alagalmates with our senses. And as the sun sets, and the waves of colors grow dim we sit under hanging lights and flip our cards to the rhythm of jazz and a sleepy haze and i feel whole. under warmth, under your warmth, under the embraces of your smiles and the greens of your irises and the way the echoes of your voice ring across my conscious in the most intoxicating way. i recall memories of my past, of nostalgia and joy, and i reassure you and myself that i will always remember those, that they will always and forever be my favorite. but now that you're gone, now that i sit lonely and flip cards over to the rhythm of my cries, the memories in which you are there are now my favorite. i forget myself in them, and i forget the old ones. songs i associate to meadows and hot cups of tea now i see only you, the hum of ella fitzgerald is now your smiles, crackling records are my memory of plush blankets and the queen of hearts and the song of let it go only makes me want to fight to actually let go.

i don't want to... let go. i beg for you to know that. and once again i tell you its a lie to think so, to think that i'm okay. it's a lie my love, it's a lie.

so do me one thing when bags are packed and doors are locked, when a strum of guitar plays on your mind, and records crack under the needle and the scrap of ocean water and sand soaks your curls— remember that somewhere, though thousands of miles i am thinking of you, and the new memories that replaced the old, and they way you laugh and the way you smile and the way your brows raise when silence penetrates the air, and the way i am you and you are me and we are

nothing and everything.