IPOMOEA
let's be wildflowers
T
he leaves are rustling overhead, branches shivering at the ghosting kiss of the wind. His heart quickens, leaping to action inside of his chest. Together the branches and his blood beat out a rhythm, a melody that twirl hand in hand between the trees, leaving all else (himself included, he thinks) far behind. He’s about to tuck the stone creature away when she appears, stepping out from beneath the shadows. The bird floats in the air beside him still, hovering the way he used to when he had still been alive. But those grey wings don’t beat, and the eyes have lost all their brightness; they don’t look, the way Ipomoea looks, at the blood-red girl who draws near to them.
Ipomoea does not move, does not speak as she approaches. His eyes follow her across the forest, following the light as it traces gold and green dapples down the length of her horn. When she stops he holds his breath, and the forest itself feels like it’s waiting - for him, for her, he isn’t sure which. A flower presses soft petals against his ankle.
“To the stone,” he tells her, and he isn’t sure he wants to tell her how it didn’t answer, wouldn’t answer, perhaps ever now - he only wants to tell her that it once did. That once it wasn’t a stone, but a bird, and his friend.
But instead he swallows the words down, and tilts his head back to see when the sun breaks - briefly, quickly, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of way - between the trees in a sheet of gold. It catches a sapling in its spotlight, once hidden in the darkness beneath the canopy.
“But it’s the trees who whisper back.”
Even now he can see the way a new bud is unfurling from one of the young tree’s slender limbs, as if encouraged by the brief ray of sunlight. A distant part of him is happy at the sight, part of his heart is beating in tandem with the earth - but another part still aches.
“I don’t know you,” he says suddenly when he looks back at her, and he can't help but wonder if he should. There's an echo of a memory drifting through his mind, whispering something he can’t quite hear. He isn't sure if the voice is his or the forest's or the flower's, or if there's any difference between them. And when his lips part and he asks, "Who are you?" it feels as if they're all asking her, through him.
@Thana | "speaks" | notes: <3
