Winter rampaged their home and took residence in their hearts. The group spoke under the ebony sky. From warm bellies, what used to be unutterable thoughts ballooned into the room. The smoky vapours billowed between hurt mouths until it plummeted into the fireplace.
That night, the group slept with their usual fiery energy, but a sourness lingered on their tongues like vinegar. An unsettling was in the air. Would it only disappear with the spring rain?
What was spoken changed them in ways that they would not return from, as if the words had escaped their minds only to be immortalised in space. It occurred to them, in brief moments before they shoved it into the subconscious, that the human mind is monstrous. Between these competing states of oblivion and understanding, people they have known all their lives became strangers in the twitch of a finger.
But a deep affection for each other quickly overrode this isolated bewilderment and filled their gaping wounds. For the mortal heart is an enchanted vessel of wild throes and fathomless wants, and the more we begin to understand each other, the further away we seem to drift. So we vacillate between clarity and puzzlement, and the only point of rest is found in love.
You see, the words that were thrown into the fire that night were forgotten in the month of rebirth. The bare ground had begun to fragrance Life. From the Earth up, its perfumed roots were planted in their home. The healing unclothed the truth that we bloom fully when the Creator has the pen and writes through us.
The warmer days did come, and their hearts warmed, too. The group grew more resilient with the heat. The roses on their windowsill clotted like blood and stained their fingers to the touch. And so they learned the meaning of being cut open in order to restore. The rose’s wine-wings wilted with the passing days; they fell onto the wood week by week and one by one. Was every living thing ready for the Earth’s eternal shine to temporarily dim?
Upon the commands of autumn’s breath, the ground stiffened like a ballerina’s spine and the group cascaded like leaves in their garden into a yellow harmony. Their earthly skin mirrored the season’s touch. From the fire, the group unburied that though they were slightly weathered, they remained unscathed.
For the year wrapped itself up and knitted a new softness: a woollen scarf around their necks. Would they be prepared for the frosty chapter to be read again? In a new tongue, the group spoke of lively tales from the journey around the sun. Were the days better then, or were they just dewy-eyed? They admitted that like the planet, their hearts romped in seasoned waves and when they were swallowed whole, they emerged on new shores hand-in-hand.