Hanakotoba

Your lips are soft

Your voice is gentle

And the words you speak float off your tongue like cherry blossoms in the wind

If you were to know that tomorrow death awaits you

You would sing more joyfully

You would laugh more vigorously

And you would love more deeply

Death would find herself speechless when confronted with your gleeful resignation

Most would rather live in misery than blissfully accept the fleeting and frivolous nature of life

You are kinder than most

And your heart is more pure

Your poetry will resound infinitely within my hollow soul

And your sweet fragrance will forever stain my fingertips

I fell in love at first sight

As a fellow writer you might understand

However, I am the red spider lily

No amount of honey can offset the poison in my hands

And I find myself time and time again reliving memories of final goodbyes

When we spoke

Your optimistic impermanence

Ignited my world with hope

And I ran through my mind free of restraint

Cackling as my convictions went up in flames

But bitterness is not so easily reduced to ashes

And you were gone even more abruptly than you appeared

Suddenly alone

I stood amongst the rubble of my carefully constructed kingdom

Blood running down my cheeks

My tears smelled like metal but tasted like cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms..

Once, a cherry blossom and a red spider lily fell in love

But the saint was born to die

And the abandoned chanced upon immortality

It was an unlikely love

The spider lily learned to dream and ever after trudged through its desolate life with a smile

And the cherry blossom learned of anguish

Crying, as it watched its lover from the sky

The permanence of passing separating them forever

Somehow, sorrow made the cherry blossom even more sweet

Somehow, hope made the spider lily even more bitter

Somehow, both destroyed and completed each other simultaneously

Their very natures becoming intertwined

And, though divided by heaven and earth, one could no longer exist without the other