Echoes of yesterday

They were lovers in the dark, hands groping in the emptiness for something solid to hold. They were the same chords of the guitar playing different songs; Melancholy and nostalgia

The dying embers of a once fierce flame. The last raindrop on sandy soil. Their rhyme was a water droplet on cold asphalt unfelt, forlorn, without cognizance.

 February and July. Abandoned like crayons of a child at play.

They were twin roaches looking for a home in the heart of darkness, delving deep into the black mess. Getting lost in the harrowing hues. Tumbling. Falling. Breaking. They were a whirlwind that gathered momentum and gyrated to a great crescendo collecting everything on its path, spewing dust, and clouding the whole town with wonder but upon daylight, the god of new beginnings, everyone dusted their apparel the wind now just a memory. Forgotten.

She was July. Stoic. She was all of July stars, its sun, moon, freeze, mirth, and song. A half-moon hidden by the clouds on rainy nights, unable to find its mate, unable to bathe on lonely black silent lakes, she was a manic troglodyte in a blue hollow with her back against the light at the foggy end.

He was February. He was fourteen colors of love. Twenty-eight scented roses red and white. Pain and calm. He had an additional black rose. February had eyes of amber, endless swirls of auburn, a sunset of their own. 

In their choreograph of love, they danced to a dying melody. They danced to the doleful tingle of a broken violin. Hands outstretched, never meeting. Souls drunk on life stumbling into each other. Feet firmly planted on the ground sinking into puddles of yesterday’s pains. Two hearts swallowed by the distance. Two parallel lines, always close, never meeting.

He stole her virtue and swept her away with verse and song. He was a poet from the Eastern Mountains. He was the son of a good woman. They rode on the moon with silver clouds for wings for a day and a half, a week, a month then nothing. February was thirsty and July was cold enough.

The flame now burns on in her heart. She has blisters on the inside. She is choking on unsaid words. July sinks to her knees in a puddle of her own blood. The stench is beautiful, it awakens her demons. It’s raining and it's cold and she is drenched, a mess.

July is freezing in her little haven, the ice has numbed her skin and she feels her blood turning hot in her veins. She can’t feel her feet, she can’t breathe, each day worse than the last.

 Someone should tell July that staring at the sun won’t make her face bright. Someone should remind her that even the black rose February gave her is beautiful too. February was the wind, only felt, strong at times, calm on others but all the same, never seen.

Maybe July was too cold for love so February had no option but give her love on a knife blade and had her lick the insatiable fragments then watched from a distance as she bled to her own death.

For on the other side of the cosmos, February is coyly dressed up. He is fixing his eyebrows in the mirror and adjusting his tie. He still has that deceptive smile. His chestnut-colored eyes glow in the mirror and he files his long nails. He picks up a red rose and heads for the door because on the other side of the door stands the man, the man that February has always loved. The man that February is in love with.

Lyanah.