literature

8 things optimism taught me

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Published: Aug 30, 2014

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Literature Text

i. I told him I wouldn’t write sad poetry if he gave me a reason, and he gave me three, pressing kisses to my temples, letting his shoulders lean against mine like trees into a breeze.
ii. He told me that some poems don’t need words, beauty doesn’t always require eyes. He told me there is poetry in the slats of light encased within our interlaced fingers, that there is beauty in the slow passing of dancing minute and hour hands.
iii. I told him that I only saw poetry in the stamps emblazoned within my passport. He said that I was running from so-called misery, not stopping to see that sadness was a mesh, a filter, over happiness - that it was temporary, removable, transient.
iv. I told him that I only saw beauty in a woman sat in a café across from her handbag, as if it was the love of her life. He said that the beauty lay in how she thought the crumbs left discarded by her coffee cup spelt her soulmate’s name.

v. I told him I wouldn’t paint overcast pictures if he brightened my skies with suns, and he gave me three, holding an orb of luminescence pinched between his shoulderblades, another peeling around his birdcage ribs, the third curved into the space between his jaws.
vi. He told me that there are pastels melting in our veins, oil paint swirling in our eyes. He told me there are landscapes within ourselves, more fantastical than any in the national galleries of the world.
vii. I told him I only saw lilacs, greys arching under my skin. He said that if you mix hues, you can make something extraordinary, something brilliant and blazing and beautiful.
viii. I told him I only saw landscapes carved within his hairline, an endless shore of bone china sand meeting waves of liquid gold, that the mountains itched across his collarbones, the forests split their roots up his legs. I told him I held no scenery, that I was a desert at night, endless dunes of sombre sands. He said that he could see ruins far below, temples aching to be excavated, treasures waiting to be found. I asked him where the keys were kept, and he glanced away, whispering that there was no lock.

In time I understood, sands cascading out of pores, ruins and temples gasping for daylight, for soft fingers to restore chipping paint and eroded marble columns. I let the poems burn, the paintings crumble, seeing the wonder in the sunrise of my own irises surfacing above my lids, curling my vertebrae as a string of pearls into his open arms.