XXIII. To Old Friends, Part II: Love, Let Go.

I split the bouquet in half.

One bundle for this moment,

one for the moment after the moment after.

Balance,

or so I tell the table,

which wobbles anyway.

The wine leans warm against its glass,

a slow bleed of red between us.

Your fork hovers mid-air,

a truce trembling on metal teeth.

Outside, the wind rehearses leaving,

and the chimes forget their melody.

I place the first half in your hands,

clear my throat,

offer a sweet word on your plate.

I praise your laughter,

a window I never regret breaking.

Your eyes are a good place to rest,

but I am no longer tired.

A petal clings to your cheek.

A bee crawls from the folds of the napkin,

its hum a faint blessing.

Unlike me, you never flinch.

I watch it circle your head three times,

searching for a better place to land.

It hovers at your ear,

whispering a truth I am too human to tell.

It knows where sweetness goes to die.

Knows what to do with wilted things.

You nod,

clutching your half

like it might save you.

Petals fall into your dinner,

bruised, weeping fragments.

I almost swallow the words.

Gristle caught between my teeth.

You, soft in your silence—

a meadow calm before the burn.

But I have been soil too long.

Even roots grow weary

of holding up the world.

So I speak the heart of it now:

I can’t be the roof beam holding up your sky.

I can’t be the vessel,

made for what aches in you.

Had you only wanted me,

for me—

not as balm, not as scaffolding—

I would’ve stayed for it all:

your minutes,

your hours,

your days turned to years.

I want a love that drifts untethered,

wild seeds whispering to the wind,

light slipping through the cracks,

like waves that kiss the shore,

forgetting they've done it before.

Your knife stills.

Time drips.

Slow as wax.

I give you the other half of the bouquet,

tender, wilting,

an absurd gesture,

shedding petals across your lap.

You hold both halves like broken wings.

Your hands are full:

of me,

of us,

of nothing.

Outside,

the wind steals a petal from your pocket.

A bee carries it off like rumor.

When I rise,

your eyes do not follow.

The wind opens its palm.

I twirl inside it.

May you find a heart that does not need you,

but shouts your name when you pass.

May you wake one morning

to wildflowers blooming in your shoes,

roots that never beg for rain.

May your house stand,

with or without you,

and flourish anyway,

when no one is looking.

May you be chosen

for who you are.

And should you pass a window

and see me there,

half-shadow, half-laughter,

petals in my hair,

Know that I am blooming too.

Not because you watered me,

but because I was always a garden

waiting for its own sun.

Leave the bouquet on the porch.

Let the bees dismantle it,

piece by piece:

love, scattered into sweetness.

They will carry the petals farther

than we ever dreamed,

past fences,

past the small maps

we made of love.

They’ll make something golden

from what I broke.

I only ever wanted

a love that never caged,

a tetherless thing,

with no edge,

no end.

A low, unbroken hymn,

soft as wings,

remembering the sky—

wild as seeds

that flourish without rain.

For what it’s worth,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.