you pull away first and for a moment

i want to run away from you

to tear back toward the way we came,

past the dry, withered flowers and

chestnut and russet trees, to run until

the dull gray fields turn crisp and

strawberry blonde and sunflowers kiss the sky

where i can forget the

sensation of your lips over my entire

existence and your fingers in my hair

and tangling like veins until they

can't be unraveled and the moment of

absolute euphoria and adrenaline that

made me forget my name

you stare at me as if you can't believe

what just happened but your hollow eyes

soften and right before i turn and run

away like what i've been doing my whole

life you take hand with palms of gravel and

honey like smooth sandpaper rubbing away

all my imperfections and the watercolor paint that

seeped into my skin and pen marks tracing the

lines and creases on my fingers

"i know a secret place in this park that

not many know," your voice is hoarse,

"we need to talk,"

i don't have enough energy to refuse

and softly but insistently, you lead me there

and i wonder if you noticed too,

that our fingers had subconsciously woven

together until they became one

[🌙]

the small clump of trees hidden

from the world, by the pond brim, whispers

the bittersweet forgotten over the surface of

the star pond like suspended

futures dipping into the water

we both sit with our legs stretched out

the corners of our shoes barely lapping against

the shoreline and we stay silent like the still pond with

only the ripples of our breath mixing with

the burning cold quiet, until i ask, "why?"

"because i like you," you whisper softly,

the blueprint of your lips still engraved over mine

filling in my soul: a fractured puzzle of

something that used to be saccharine

your eyes are tender and fragmented

you stare at me, as if uncovering and peeling

away layers and layers of me until your

gaze reaches my soul, "would you go out

with me tonight?"

i don't know if we're rushing into this too fast

but i get so caught up in the present, sometimes.

my intuition tells me that it's too dangerous

dive into this, too fast

headfirst without knowing how deep the

water is, but i just want to be with you, even

if you don't mean it

and oh, the withering

sunset dancing on the edge of the pond told

me the faint stars about us, and the

stars told me to wait, but i didn't listen to

them because you're the only sun i can see

[🌙]

my hair is laced with the scent of

roses in the rain, their fragrance bleeding

away into my skin so that even

the decaying autumn wind couldn't blow

them away

the walk to the bookstore cafe is tinged with

the departing tears of autumn, thin

lines of liquid concrete threading into

my damp hair, carving itself into the cotton

fabric of my deep blue sweater

the wooden tiles lining the outside of

the cafe used to grow ivy through the wooden

board, now dried and dull against the

bamboo window bars. we are all

waiting for spring day

meet you when spring comes

until the flowers bloom again

the large window panes of glass on

the sides of the cafe gleam under the

golden light above the dainty little

tables, each with a bowl of

acorn and dried leaves and

pumpkin-scented candles sitting

on the pristine, polished wood, swirled

with intricate scribbles of creases

you sit by the window in the corner, bordered

by the shining glass on one side and

a bamboo window on the other, watching

the rain as you engrave something into a candy wrapper

i sit down across from you, my heartbeat

like drums pounding in my empty and heavy

chest, electric indigo shooting through my

veins as you look at me. "i really like the

song that's playing, do you know who it's by?"

i ask you, the music stirring stygian dusty

blue april skies in my spine

"every house feels like home

for a couple weeks"

"apple pie by lizzy mcalpine," you smile,

looking up from the pink bubble

gum wrapper you'd been scribbling on. the

waiter comes and i order chai tea and you

iced lemonade in autumn

the quiet between us is threaded with raindrops

flicking into the empty abyss in the gutters

and pipes, filled with a thousand years of

unspoken words and stanzas of a poem

we want to write about us. sometimes

i look at you shyly with flickering blue

butterflies fluttering in my chest and

sometimes you stare at me until i

look up and then you'd blush and look

away and i think in this moment, it's

the silence that brings us close

we stay there, listening to the rain

together till 9:42, right before

curfew, where you asked, "rooftop with me?"

[🌙]

your eyes sparkle with

the glow of the suns, light years away

from us yet still bright enough to

light fireworks in the souls of lost

boys, but never enough to bring me

alive

the stars are veiled with the city of

lights below us, weaving into artificial

constellations that humanity believed to

be more beautiful than the ones in the

forest blue fabric that weaved

the sky into a scintillating canvas

you slide as close to the edge of the rooftop

as possible, while i stay two worlds

away from you, my fear opening

the distance between our hearts

you turn and your face is in a daze

and for a moment i understand

"are you suicidal like me?" i whisper,

ignoring the dizziness in my skin

as i move closer to you, but never enough

"suicidal, but not like you," you move

backward so our shoulders align. your

half smile dangles like the last leaf to fall

from autumn before winter made

our world it's empire

"i'm too afraid to conquer my fears,"

i squeeze my eyes to shut the world out,

but you remain, and i hold on to

who you are in my heart and allow

it to pull me to the shore

"bravery is not about conquering your

fears," you tilt your head, your eyes

dark with cryptic solitude. they look like

glittering dark coffee glinting with blue

pinpricks of starlight

"bravery is about being able to face

the world when you're on the top of

a ferris wheel and you feel like you're going

to die before you land. bravery is

about knowing how much you can go toward

the edge of a roof before you walk back

the way you come from, about wanting

to make that distance less. bravery

is about being courageous enough to

put your life in your hand and squeeze or

to face the world and be a jewel in

a field of dirt," your words fade away

with the wind but they carve

scribbles of dynamite and inspiration

into my crumbling heart

i want to learn the world through your eyes

i want to taste the words on your lips

before you say them and i want to catch up

with you as you follow your dreams and

i'd follow you because you are my dream because

you're too good to be real but right

now i don't care; at least it's a good dream

i want to have your courage, but

i'm not there yet. we're all raw stones

flecked with emeralds, some peaking

out through the cracks and others still

deep within us, too deep for us to reach, yet

but you made me understand that

courage is about taking the first step

and being brave enough to want to know

love, so that's why i mustered enough courage

to say with a trembling voice,

"c-could you hold my h-hand? i want to

see the city w-with l-l-less fear,"

and we stayed like that for a while,

talking and reading the unknown language

in the stars and holding each other and

tasting the wind on each other's lips until

my fear fades away as if it were never there,

and like that autumn slipped us

underneath my tongue

[🌙]

let's run off the world together,

to drown into the sea

where forests bloom for you and me

and together we can be

[ an expert from the white rose

painted with blood: poem 5; i reached

you, wonderland, the love of my life ]

the teacher's eyes scanned

over the last words over and over again

until they stained the whites of her eyes

with exploding gasoline stars and

blisslicked rooves of insanity

and wonderland

alas she attached the winning poems

to the director of the a1ice magazine:

5 poems by roselin gray and auburn evans,

selected after careful consideration

[🌙]

chai tea - audrey

apple pie - lizzy mcalpine

venus - sleeping at last

spring day - bts

the louvre - lorde

whisper of the heart - ghibli studios

"you're in a raw, natural state, with hidden gems inside. you need to dig down deep and find the emeralds tucked away inside you." - whisper of the heart

~

the second book won't go in a separate book but will instead be posted following the parts of this one

thank you to all the songs, movies (most of which from ghibli), and poems that have pushed me to write till the last word of this book

this has been a journey of the characters finding the emeralds deep inside them and becoming who they were all along, a journey of writing in which i dug deep inside of my heart and came out with emerald stones that have made this book.

life is not about cleaning the blood off your white petals. it's about having enough courage to become all the flaws and scars and wounds that makes you beautiful.

the autumn leaves will fade and winter will come, but our hearts will never get frozen

till the flowers bloom again x