Two Days

(For 21/2/16)

Today was a really good day. I mean it. I went around the LSR Campus taking photos as an evidence of spring happening. Later, I explained spring happening to a friend of mine who can't see. Photographs aren't evidence enough, so I made her feel the flowers in the pictures- those whose names I knew. I also told her about my favourite flower, camellia. They break really easily.

Last year, after reading The Narrow Road To the Deep North before boards, a friend of mine and I had become obsessed with the flower. We had a camellia bush in school, which shed flowers everyday, as though to incentivize me to not leave. I gave a flower to everyone I loved then. They break really easily.

My friend promised me she'd tell me when the bush bloomed again.

I got this today.

So I wrote this:

Two Days.

30/3/15
When I offer you camellias,
Hold them like you would hold
yourself
When in the absolute fear of breaking.
Camellias break with touch,
And I give them to you as a metaphor for
Bigger Things
They will come apart, whorl by whorl
But on early mornings, in the middle of boards,
They are drops of blood scattered on
mirrors that ripple with a touch,
The ground rippling with the need
To hold something as delicate as a camellia,
Resorting to its oldest trick:
Gravity.

If impossible is an absolute
And it is impossible to preserve a camellia,
Tell me you'll love me absolutely.

21/2/16
How do you explain colours to someone who is blind?
You describe.
Draw shut your wrist, I'll colour it red with my fingers
Sketching circles with the pad of my thumbs
Can you feel it? My delicate camellia?
The sun looks like this, like my Palm opening into your Palm
The world may feel blue, but it is green,
Green as in you can walk uninhibited,
Green as in the earth opened its Palm into the Sun.
And that's a bougainvillea that I have put against your cheek
It feels like leaves, but I bet you haven't felt leaves
On your cheek at least.
Pinecones are prayer-shaped, like my prayer on top of yours
And the serrations of our fingers
Is what our prayers have to offer.

Think innocence for light,
Think fifteen and in love for the first time.
Think passion for deep,
Think fifteen and out of love for the first time.
Think light and dark heart-shaped drops
Which will come apart
Whorl by whorl.
Can you see it? My delicate camellia?