Sometimes he liked to come to the edge of the world, and wonder what it would be like —
It’s winter on the island; and in winter, all things die. He had come too late to see the stars (but he had heard the way they all sank into the ocean one day, and how all that was left of them were the crystal skeletons he now walks over.) He was too late, and now he walks through a graveyard of stars and wonders how many wishes had died with them here, how many more had sank in the sea. Each one he passes makes his heart feel like it is both speeding up and slowing down, as he counts all the things that might have been.
He wonders if it says more about the stars or him, that he sees himself watching from every jagged reflection. Or not him, but someone like him — someone with the same smile, the same spots, the same rosy cheeks. But there, he thinks, is where the similarities end, skin-deep, like the stranger is wearing his to hide what lies beneath. Maybe it’s only a lie he tells himself, to pretend that other-Ipomoea is more like himself than he wants to believe. Because he knows, even when he turns away from that first mirror and presses on, that the island is only showing him who he is, beneath his bones and muscles and blood and magic. The orphan in the desert.
Each reflection is the same, that trapped self stalking after him as he makes his way through the fractured maze. It follows him all the way to the cliffs, where the star skeletons form an edge sharp enough to cut, a dam by which to hold the dreams at bay.
He listens to the ocean breaking itself against the glass-cliffs of the island as he stands there on its brink, watches as it throws itself upon the ice and the crystals with such a frenzy he begins to wonder what the waves are trying to escape from. Saltwater slicks his skin from the spray, adds another layer of frozen brine to the ground. He watches the waves rage as far out as he can see, and it feels —
Oh, it feels like watching himself.
He watches the snow fall and disappear beneath the water, watches the waves reach up like so many hungry mouths to consume them.
Behind him his flowers are growing overtop the mirrors. From the glass and the frost and the bone-white star-skeletons, color blooms shy and slow and spreads like spiderwebs across the surface.
And he does not turn to look. Ipomoea never sees the way the frost creeps along their petals like a funeral veil, or the way they grow stiff and cold beneath its weight. He never notices his reflection staring out at him like a ghost, with blood and bones replacing the flower wreath on his brow and eyes that are far too sharp and hungry to belong to him. And he is not watching when that other Ipomoea’s lips peel back and his teeth flash in the winter-gloom as he laughs.
He sees only the sea, and the way all those snowflakes sink into it like so many dreams that ran out of the hope that kept them alight.
It’s winter on the island; and in winter, all things die. He had come too late to see the stars (but he had heard the way they all sank into the ocean one day, and how all that was left of them were the crystal skeletons he now walks over.) He was too late, and now he walks through a graveyard of stars and wonders how many wishes had died with them here, how many more had sank in the sea. Each one he passes makes his heart feel like it is both speeding up and slowing down, as he counts all the things that might have been.
He wonders if it says more about the stars or him, that he sees himself watching from every jagged reflection. Or not him, but someone like him — someone with the same smile, the same spots, the same rosy cheeks. But there, he thinks, is where the similarities end, skin-deep, like the stranger is wearing his to hide what lies beneath. Maybe it’s only a lie he tells himself, to pretend that other-Ipomoea is more like himself than he wants to believe. Because he knows, even when he turns away from that first mirror and presses on, that the island is only showing him who he is, beneath his bones and muscles and blood and magic. The orphan in the desert.
Each reflection is the same, that trapped self stalking after him as he makes his way through the fractured maze. It follows him all the way to the cliffs, where the star skeletons form an edge sharp enough to cut, a dam by which to hold the dreams at bay.
He listens to the ocean breaking itself against the glass-cliffs of the island as he stands there on its brink, watches as it throws itself upon the ice and the crystals with such a frenzy he begins to wonder what the waves are trying to escape from. Saltwater slicks his skin from the spray, adds another layer of frozen brine to the ground. He watches the waves rage as far out as he can see, and it feels —
Oh, it feels like watching himself.
He watches the snow fall and disappear beneath the water, watches the waves reach up like so many hungry mouths to consume them.
Behind him his flowers are growing overtop the mirrors. From the glass and the frost and the bone-white star-skeletons, color blooms shy and slow and spreads like spiderwebs across the surface.
And he does not turn to look. Ipomoea never sees the way the frost creeps along their petals like a funeral veil, or the way they grow stiff and cold beneath its weight. He never notices his reflection staring out at him like a ghost, with blood and bones replacing the flower wreath on his brow and eyes that are far too sharp and hungry to belong to him. And he is not watching when that other Ipomoea’s lips peel back and his teeth flash in the winter-gloom as he laughs.
He sees only the sea, and the way all those snowflakes sink into it like so many dreams that ran out of the hope that kept them alight.
open to any!
rising // blooming
