The Flowers Can Keep Blooming

It wasn’t midnight, but I wanted to pretend it was. I wanted you to kiss my mouth and reach your hands inside of me and yank that sadness out. Lay it out on the street and watch it slither away like a snake. The thing is, the sadness was mine, and I can’t look for love inside of others. I can scream and I can cry, and I can wail, but still, I’m left with my hands.

And maybe we will spend our whole lives looking for someone to stop the aching, to press our bodies up against any warm thing we can find just to feel that shudder roll through us like a tidal wave. But I’ve seen people tear themselves apart for empty love. People who become the smallest versions of themselves, and the truth in me is, I think we’re all a little bit sad. I think we’re all a little bit on our knees and trying to beg love into us. We throw pieces of ourselves into others and look to see which ones they pickpocket. It’s your laugh, by the way. And sometimes your eyes. Sometimes the way you hoard their sadness inside your body like you’re trying to be a tent that blocks out the wind on all sides. Sometimes you’ll just take what you can get and sometimes this is all you can get. Please, don’t take watered down love. Please, don’t hide the best parts of yourself inside of others. There are people I know who shrink inside the shadow of their lover and there are people I know who will take the gun, bullets and all, because it was better than silence. Better than not being aimed at, at all.

But I challenge you: Big love. Monumental love. Love that breaks out of the boxes. Love that makes you sing. Love that changes you. Love that brings joy. Love that makes you look at the sky and wish and dream. Love that has you laughing. Love that has you believing in the future. Love that feels like hope sliding down your throat. Love that is captivating and kind and massive and beautiful and wild and free. Love that makes you come alive. Your heart was sleeping, but now she leaps. Now she goes into dawn, into tomorrow, into Saturday mornings and daylight.

I love you like this. I love you when you are just joy, when you are free, when you are laughing over an ice cream cone and the sun slides over your face just the right way. When you take real love by the palm and kiss her on the mouth.

It’s been waiting for you. Just grasp it.

—Kaylie R. Brisbourne