Originally published in The Daily Californian.
inspired by taylor marie
i was wind,
monsoons on summer days and
unexpected hurricanes,
breath missing from
faded blue veins.
this is how air loves, i said,
always trying to leave and
hard to keep
Zeus never stayed for daylight’s break;
my tendency to walk away.
she was fire,
roaring passion and
crackling orange warmth,
bright blue gas radiating
in gorgeous form.
this is how fire loves, she said,
swallowing things
before they can die out.
Ares knows endings are only embers;
her distaste for cold December.
we met by chance,
two best friends,
uncanny mixture of
hydrogen and oxygen fell together
not apart
screaming along to god’s voice
through speakers in broken cars.
made water as
flammable gas and easy air
danced together in twists and
writhes,
an eternity of in-between,
teal serenity,
intermingling souls and lives.
this is how water loves, we said.
in waves
but always washes up to
the same shores
against shifting sand of time.
Poseidon hums sotto voce
his constant thrum,
unfailing rhythm of
ebb and flow,
a metronome of hope or
home.
in this
glorious cobalt blue,
we hold each other,
forget we will not forever
fill the same space,
press palm to palm our fingertips
to sift through silk of
Andromeda and Milky Way,
rewrite the lines of our separated fate.
in this
royal navy,
we look for answers,
tilt our heads up to
silver sky
fall down dizzy from shared laughter.
we clench our fists around
our threatened infinity,
knuckles of white-hot fervor,
hair of billowing, ferocious want,
two atoms of hydrogen and oxygen
refusing to ever fall apart.
and yet somehow,
we let go,
open our hands and receive
the calm cerulean of divine sky
air has not yet scattered,
inhale every last bit of
this dazzling,
endless,
blue light.
for this is how water loves, we said.
no matter how far,
how hard,
how long,
it returns
to caress the same shores.
it returns
in waves
to bring wind and fire home
every time.
your lips on mine
send lightning rods of
expectation and
molasses anticipation
running down each vertebrae of
my knobby spine, convince
every circuit in my medulla
not to just flit by.
i did not think people any longer
appeared beautiful by morning light,
scored by birds greeting sunrise,
but i was surprised to find
i was not sad as
i woke to your eyes.
it’s just that,
us air signs,
we like to take flight, like
birds running in circles, always
checking different haystacks
for needles to mend
broken wings
earned in the sky.
i cannot say
i love you, but
thank you for holding my hand.
i suppose
it can be enough to make
resting my weary feathers
feel right.
i mean, is love not simply
wanting to sit next to that person sometimes?
my body is
a battleground which has seen
too many of your wars.
it has heard your
heartbeats like gunshots,
has wrapped its raw wounds
in soft, forgiving gauze.
my body is
covered in scars from
maps of us you charted on
my lower back,
has lost its voice
asking you to stop
traipsing over it like conquered land.
my body is
not an island or a
temporary tropical paradise to
wait out the fucking rain;
it is wind bequeathed with
fire and knows the
storm of flame.
my body is
mostly mine but also yours;
so, please,
do not treat it like
a place to rest your weary bones
before you get home,
for i too am looking for one of those.
my body is a battleground,
but our battle is finished.
you have left it bent and
tarnished, but you have not won.
it is still radiant,
blindingly beautiful.
it will rise again like the sun.