perfume ... gratitude ... apology ((group of three letters)

A Poem by beautifulblade

perfume -- 7/16/15 gratitude -- 7/28/15 apology -- 7/28/15

Dear Noir,

I'm considering how much your name sounds like a fragrance, like the air around my words should smell of something along the lines of fresh night and stars and spring flowers. At the same time, however, it's not just about my words but yours, because your hands cradle prose along the lines in your palms, and you write the past and future into poetry that hangs onto the present like a dangling thread. Your words are a lifeline, mariposa, pulling me from troubled waters on those beautiful butterfly wings that you were never quite sure could actually fly. I grasp onto your ramblings like life rings, pulling the 'O' from my lips as they light up my night sky. I breathe them into me, lock them away for rainy days where I am craving the scent of poetry.

We cross paper bridges together, our arms bleeding out our declarations of freedom until, somehow, we connect with the insides of our souls. Stand with me, my black butterfly, and shout out our defiance to the ones who fucked us over; help me find my wings.

I sigh; leave paper trails of broken promises and crumpled dollar bills. No, I'm not a stripper (not that you would judge me if I was). My hesitations are marked by my scars, and my memories are full of silence because I can't stand to listen to my thoughts. They only ever seem to bring me down. I want to scream, but my voice is only captured between flashes of a Polaroid camera, and I can't bear to ask you not to delete my rantings. They probably weren't that important, anyway.

I say hurrah to the pact of the nightwalkers, sign my name beside yours in a crimson stain because we have so many paper cuts from rewriting our story. We laugh, joking about those 57 seconds and our horrible jogging skills that don't matter as long as we're on time, and you glare at me for stealing your words, and I shrug. I remember the first time I stole something, and I try and think of which item holds more value; but then I realize that tamagotchi's and juicy fruit mean so much more to a six year old. I cry just the same, shamed then and now for taking what wasn't mine but inhaling your verses until my head spins. I can hardly hold onto my thoughts anymore, and somehow you blow them away like dandelion wisps that parachute their way across horizons. How I wish I could float along with them just to see where pieces of me land.

Poet, I am running out of ways to address you, so instead I just sit and breathe you into me, your words painting my veins and resting in my scars. If you read between the lines, perhaps you can read my story.

Sincerely,

a distant echo of an admirer.

P.S.

Your scent, Noir mariposa, has guided me through the darkness.

Dear Belle,

we always seem to end up back here, with words of comparison ending up like the froth from the ocean; pretty- but, no, actually that's it. you see you remind me of the princess dressed in yellow and we've become defiant against the Beasts in the world. there's the light that shines and the shadows that mark the land- well, we can see past them.

sometimes though, we are the darkness and the cold hearted love of a life we knew is confined to four walls and dabbles of tissues and plasters painted in a colour they should not be. i encourage you to scream- scream as loud as you can for at 2am when the world is scary, the most amazing things happen, and i for one will not judge your choices if you need to repent.

you are a poet, whose wings are there although they may be hidden and you and you alone have the power to write them into existence. if you jump too soon, i'll be there to catch your delicate disposition- sit you upright, and we'll begin again.

invest in the world of literary freedom and succumb to the words that soothe. you're a Belle, a beauty- and these demons, if you believe, will never define you.

With love,
the queen of hurricanes

My queen,

how funny it is to see you write of oceans -- my mind tends to live in the waters, swimming with sharks and mermaids so often that it can be hard to sometimes tell them apart. Perhaps I am more like Ariel, not quite able to understand new things and desperately wanting to know change, but then in that way I couldn't possibly be her.

You see, to me, change is a terrifying thing with shark teeth and black eyes that can see through underwater darkness. I frightens me that it might someday know what my mind is truly thinking. At least I can hope to have figured that out myself, when that time comes.

In the meantime, however, it is hard to scream beneath rolling waves of salty seas, and the water burns my eyes when I try to find out where I'm going. Instead, I can only close my eyes and loose my words into air bubbles heading up towards the sky. I am too heavy to hold on, but not enough to sink -- finding that I float along the edge of nothingness while my thoughts settle into my palms. I pray that the water doesn't wash them away, for they are the closest I can get to your words, to that subtle perfume that I want to breathe into me as deeply as I can but to do so would mean I would drown.

Your highness,

I have lost my muse, it seems. It swam away with the sharks and I am too scared to get it back because I might not like what I find. Please, issue a decree, order it to come back to me before it absorbs too much of the darkness. My pen is out of ink and I am unable to write those wings you speak of into existence on my back. I know where they belong, I just can't make them appear. I wonder.... I wonder if they are as beautiful as you believe.

Speaking of beauty, did you know I find the nights beautiful? They are majestic and mysterious in a different way than this water, and I wish I had the energy to swim up to the moon. I miss the stars, twinkling one after the other as if to say hello in a never ending wave that spreads across the sky. Maybe, if my words reach high enough, the man in the moon will lift me out of this darkness and into his arms. Maybe then I would shine as brightly as you somehow think I can be.... but maybe that's just another 2am wish that I can't scream without losing that last part of me.

Forgive me, queen of hurricanes, for this correspondence has been awfully self centered of me, not bothering to ask how you've been or if you have realized your wings are stronger than you once believed. Perhaps you could fly to the moon for me, and whisper sweet little words of poetic perfume into its ear (if you are able to find it, that is... I've never quite been able to tell. Maybe you'll just have to pick a crater and let your lips move in a way that any unspoken words are heard louder than any scream). If you ask nicely, do you think that the man in the moon would extend his reach into the depths for me? Do you think you could ask his name while you're up there? 'The man in the moon' can be bothersome to say when I'm trying to conserve my air (I've found that it takes more than one bubble to say).

While you're up there, wave hello to the stars for me. I vaguely remember being with them, once. Perhaps they would remember me.. the star that dove into the oceans to find a mermaid, but found she couldn't swim well enough to pull herself back across horizons. Who knows, maybe they would remember you, too.

Forever yours,
a fallen star disguised as a princess

P.S. Maybe I really am more like Belle, as you say, but yellow just isn't my color.