Let my heart be a prism for all the colours of love I carry.
a. songbird // grief
She comes to my mind first, with her bright smirk. A teenager who knew it all, who’d done it all, who led the way with her youthful spirit. At twenty-something, she still liked to call cola ‘rum’ and pretend to be a pirate as she drank it.
Our ages are a contradiction: she’ll always be older and wiser in my memory but next year, I’ll be older than she’ll ever be.
I wrote her a poem once, I hope she got a chance to read it. I lost the email and I forgot how it goes.
I can’t think of love without also remembering grief.
b. toad // magnetism
He’s an angel dozing in the morning sunlight. He forgets to text sometimes (and so do I). He finds a challenge and sees nothing but the next step in front of him, and then the next, and then the next. He keeps going.
I’ve learnt so much.
I’m re-learning how to want things again: I want to touch, I want to cry, I want to part the southern sea between us.
We’re an oh moment, accompanied with wide, beaming smiles. But somehow, our moment doesn’t end, only pauses for air. One day, I’ll figure out the exact science of how we met, how our moment keeps happening, how we keep going.
For now, I have just this moment and it is good.
c. chewbacca // family
The house is held together by… a force I can’t name. It’s some miraculous, binding formula of truth and lies, words used to hurt and silences used to soothe. Love and all its complications.
Is it nosy questions about a toad’s religious beliefs? Is it inside jokes about an infamous Wookie temper and clumsy, fiddling hands? Is it subtle judgements of love like 'you eat instant noodles everyday now’ and 'take this vitamin supplement’? Or is it the mystery of never-ending generosity?
I know it’s not the unspoken truths that we tiptoe around. Like her cooking is getting worse; there is no god but there may be comfort; time is passing faster than any of us know.
Time is passing… time is passing so fast.
I think it’s her, I think she’s the force holding this house together.
d. trifecta // friendship i
I think of friendship in two ways: before and after I met you. (I don’t think I could go back to the way I used to do things.)
There’ll always be two chairs reserved for you in my cosy home, so have some tea and vegan cookies and tell me about your day.
Tell me more, tell me everything.
e. woodland // friendship ii
Do you sometimes feel rather like a woodland critter? Me too! I thought I was the only one.
I feel like I am newly rehabilitated in the woods where I was born. I think I’m doing what I was always meant to do: snuffle and explore and find the next little morsel to eat? It feels familiar but my paws are still clumsy and new.
But in these woods, I’ve made a new friend, one who’s hunting for the same thing, our paths overlapping in the undergrowth. My friend is a kind and wise critter, cute as a button and tougher than they look.
I’m not very good at this critter business of being myself yet, but as I learn, I’m glad I get to share and roam these woodlands with you.
f. shell // honourary mention
My name is sam. I am seven years old. I have a tortoise named Sally. She is one year old. Her name is because she has a shell but I don’t like the name 'Shelly’.
A tortoise is NOT a turtle, because they live on land. If they have a stumpy tail, they’re a girl but honestly, who knows?
They like to eat lettuce. Animal poop is gross.