Love, Echo 

By Abby Walmer 

 

Beloved, 

I have come to understand words, the way they taste on an untouched tongue. The way they bend, like a bow beneath skilled hands. How to hoard them, hold them, kiss the copper shine off their newness. How to eat them, savoring each thick-shelled thought and sucking the tender hearts from within. How to wield them, like the eyes of Medusa, turning her enemies to art with a single gravestone glance. How to love them, lose them, like water through a pair of clenched fists.

And yet, it is you I long for, my Narcissus, my nectar, my fistful of rootless roses. It is you that I write to, on this paper that is too thin to become a prayer, in this ink that tastes far too much like my own blood. It is your name that I bear in the weight of every witnessed bone, your gaze that I wear like a cloak of borrowed light, your honey-hot hands that I will never hold, your altar that I bind myself to again, and again, and again. You, who know nothing of silence, of subtlety, of that which moves beneath the skin. You, who despise the very dust you walk on, simply because it cannot help being conquered. You, who speak only in the language of reflections: a mirror, an eye, a smooth-skinned lake, a smile curved like still water. You, who could never imagine any gravity but your own.

Love, 

Echo

 

Beloved,

Wanting had nothing to do with it. Not your palms, pressing the pulp from this ripening poem, from the soft flesh of my heart. Not your eyes, too rich with beauty to bestow more than a glance on these begging lips, these empty hands. Not your voice, sucking the marrow from my every desire, spitting the pale bones at my feet. Now, I know one more way to swallow a dagger. One more daughter that will never learn the meaning of drought. One more graveyard where a tongue can be buried. But I still do not know the words that will contain you. 

Narcissus, wanting had everything to do with it. With my bones, too hollow to hold me above this hateful earth. With my blood, too cold to fuel your funeral pyre. With your arrows, each one an exclamation point in the legend of our bodies. With my sisters, staining their lungs with sacrificial smoke, folding their fingers around revenge. With Nemesis, her shine on this water, her breath against your neck. And with you, my Narcissus, a sky unbroken by mortal hands, a black hole not worthy to devour itself, a sun drowning in its own reflected fire. Now, I know one more way to watch a man starve. One more day before the moon survives. One more body that cannot bear to be immortal. But I still do not know the words that will release me.

Love, 

Echo

 

Beloved,

I am here. Always, I am here, orbiting the very edges of what I will never call my own. And yet, the closest you come to me is an eclipse-darkened shadow, a keen-boned back, the weeks-old warmth of your footsteps in the marsh.  Tell me, Narcissus, what is the difference between a nearsighted man and a blind one? Between a poet and a girl without words, a girl without worth? I cover you in the horse-whip wind of night, a shroud against the eyes of death. I raise bread to your lips and you do not taste it. I cradle wine within my palms and watch it leak away. At last, you have rooted yourself, but within a wilderness that will not allow me to enter. Still, I cannot bring myself to blame you. After all, what does a faithful moon matter against the backdrop of these brighter suns? 

Why, Narcissus? Why can’t you see me? I know how many constellations your sky holds. I know I am but a single star, a single tooth in a many-mouthed monster, a single fist against the blades of this dark. But you are an astronomer. At least, I thought you were. 

What is love? I know how foolish I must sound, asking such a question. Love is too bitter a draught for the likes of you to stomach. There are some answers that only the drowning can give.\

This is love: a slow collapse at the edges of oneself. A mouthful of songs, but no music to bear their weight. A beggar outside the doors of a feast, grateful for the scraps that no one else will swallow. A stonemason before a quarry, with no tools but his own two hands. The truth is, like all women, I am an addict, in love with my own slow death. The truth is, there is no way to win this game.

Love,

Echo

 

Beloved,

Do you know how long a lightning bug lives? How much oxygen it takes to kill a candle? Soon, I will learn with you. How to breathe when my body is a burning house, collapsing rafter by rafter. How to be a match, striking suddenly. Dying softly. Soon, I will become your reflection, a girl blue-skinned and beyond saving. A phantom in skin as well as speech. An exoskeleton, empty only on the inside.

Narcissus, my mayfly with only a day to live, would it have made a difference if I was beautiful? If I had quartz-kissed skin and faceted eyes? If my touch was ambrosia, sweet enough to kill slowly? If my body was as easy to break as the flowers cursed with your name? Or would you have thrown the grenade anyway?

Would it have made a difference if I told you about the fireflies, the ones you never cared enough to catch? How they share a single kiss and then succumb, the opposite of a sleeping beauty? How they are born to bleed light, a spark inherited within cupped hands? How they only burn once, so bold and so brief? Or would you have struck the match anyway?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Love, 

Echo

 

Abby Walmer is a sophomore at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. Her work has been recognized by Teen Ink, the Texas Poetry Society, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.