Ipomoea
I hope you are blessed
with a heart like a wildflower.
Strong enough to rise again
after being trampled upon,
tough enough to weather
the worst of summer storms,
and to be able to grow and flourish
even in the most broken places.
with a heart like a wildflower.
Strong enough to rise again
after being trampled upon,
tough enough to weather
the worst of summer storms,
and to be able to grow and flourish
even in the most broken places.
If it had not been for the sea weeping below him, throwing salt and foam in his face like accusations, he might not have hated her. If it had been any day but today, if it had been any letter but one tying a weight around his throat by which to drown him beneath her. Maybe if it was not for the monster that the desert had awakened in him, gnawing at all the pieces of his heart that still felt soft.
Oh, he has never been good at this game.
But Anandi is there in the water and looking so much like a shark waiting to devour him, and Ipomoea has half a mind to throw himself to the waves and whisper I dare you in the Emissary’s ear. His magic is growing thorns in his lungs again, froths as white as the sea around her body, burns as the salt when it catches in an open wound. Anandi is there — and Ipomoea is only a vessel for his magic, and in the absence of a war to fight and a king to behead, it is Anandi that his monster snarls at now.
He does not smile when she humors him — he is not listening. Ipomoea has never had a use for flattery, particularly when the same teeth that forms them flash so sharply in the light. Every word he feeds to his magic, to his monster, and it only grows all the more hungry because of it. And like the sea carving away a cliffside, it strips away his sadness bit by bit until the anger brimming below is all that remains. And he wonders —
has there ever been a difference to the two? Being sad has always felt a bit like being angry.
When he smiles at last, it feels every bit as sharp as her teeth. “Will you trade me a secret for a secret? Or are mine the only ones to be cast into the waves?”
He steps closer to her, closer to the sea — the ground crumbles, pebbles sliding away into the water. “Won't you come up here with me?”
If the sea was whispering to her now, surely it was carrying the dare he speaks with his eyes.
@
“speech”
