I P O M O E A
—
H
e does not feel like a king tonight. Kings did not dance in the water without worrying about how it might look; kings did not dip their heads below the waves to look for forgiveness along the riverbed. Kings did not strip themselves down to the bone and show the world the worries written in scars across their heart.But he does.
In the river he becomes someone else entirely. He is not Ipomoea the King, or Ipomoea-who-is-pretending-not-to-be-King. He is not even Ipomoea the orphan, or the flower-picker, or Ipomoea-with-flowers-at-his-feels. He is —
He is—
“I am Ipomoea.”
And that alone feels like enough.
And in simply being, he finds freedom. In thinking of only who he is and not want he is, or was, or will be — he can almost remember. He did not know he should be missing this, missing looking at the world like it was the first time seeing it, like the fireflies were the first source of light he’d experienced. He did not know he should be trying to be soft instead of sharp, calm instead of the storm — he supposes that, after so long spent fighting, he forgot it was okay to rest before the next battle. His memories, his jagged edges, his tired heart, he leaves it all in the river.
And who steps out of the water and asks a stranger for a dance is someone he thinks he recognizes. An Ipomoea from another time, another life, another version of himself he did not know he should be trying to hang onto all those times he told himself to be brave.
She is playing the same role as he tonight, in this game of almost-forgetting and half-remembering. Her smile makes his feel softer; her bow makes her own movements less stiff. And the childlike-mischief in her eyes is bright enough to overlook the shadows that linger still in the corners. Even when she tries to hide them, they’re there — the light cannot exist if not for a little bit of darkness.
But when she dissolves into a flurry of movement and laughter, pulling him along like a moth after her flame, he thinks to himself that some lights — maybe their lights — can burn brilliantly enough to overlook the shadows they cast.
So he loses himself in the place where the light touches the darkness, in the thrill of his bare hooves beating the earth, in the thrum of his blood in his veins and the song weaving through the air. The fireflies follow them into the darkness and there they make their own light, their own dance, and a new version of themselves that is both a revival and a rebirth.
There is a moment, when he pauses to catch his breath and count the fireflies, when he looks at her and thinks she is an ember torn free from the fire. Maybe they both are errant embers tonight, burning, burning, burning their memories and their griefs and all the things they could have been but were not.
“Are you from here, Stella?” he asks, teeth flashing in a smile. “Or only visiting?” Below the words is humming — the song, the magic, the fever of the night —
and Ipomoea burning up like the desert.
you are the poem wildflowers write to spring
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