threseaaaa - Tumblr blog

[threseaaaa]

Desire spreads within my chest like an ember in ash waiting to bloom into fireworks. I’ve never wanted someone the way I want you, but it’s a small flame I’ve kept aloft in the farthest reaches of the world. The love I have for you is something more than what I’ll allow that flame to be. I love you more as an eternal companion, watching the way your roots have taken place in arid soils and blossomed into a persimmon tree. Sweet fruits come in the fall and you offer me a few, a laugh on your beautiful lips that sear into my memory. I love you, but not in the way I dream of once in a blue moon. I love the you that has come to share the rain and the sun in this little grove, dragging me kicking and screaming into your life against shy wills. I love the you that cried because you believed in me so wholeheartedly. I love the you whose leaves have bloomed late like mine. I’m not afraid of this world when I have you at my side.

So, these licks of flame will stay there in that little jar of fireflies. These other feelings of mine that have taken root at your side are far more beautiful than a wildfire desire of lovers.

"Persimmon Trees" by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

I think of your trembling voice on the other side of this conversation, every worry, every spark of anger spilled towards me as if I could reassemble the pieces you've scattered everywhere in your mind. I wish I could hold you close and be the puzzle piece that made sense. The people we meet never seem to quite fit in, but you and me, we're as smooth as calm waters, stormy only in waves we ride down together. You laugh softly when I tell you stories about the individual I care about, and you prod me gently when I can't find it in myself to keep walking. Come with me, your eyes ask. Run away with me.

You deserve the world, you whisper to me. I believe you see me as much more than I am. I believe you think too much of me.

And a part of me wants to keep being that person for you. If I could be the one to make you smile, I would.

If I could have wrenched my feelings away from another and given them to you, I would have. But the world doesn't stop, and the affections I have hold me in place even when I keep walking along. You have your eyes looking ahead and it takes everything in me not to look back.

My sentiments have no place in this road of ours. I think as much as you laugh in the dark at my soft words. My heart unravels like an ember found, a glimpse caught in a banked fire.

So here you are, written to stay.

- "flickers," by Terra Pham

We are barely strangers, newly acquaintances. Your name lingers at the edge of my tongue, waiting to be called. I do not think you know how shy I am when I speak to everyone but you. I stifle the urge to take your hand and pull you into my orbit. What thoughts fill that intelligent mind of yours?

I’ve made this mistake before, to fall for a beautiful face with a vapid eye and voice. My heart’s still out on which you will be.

I still remember the first time you came through the door and you caught me in a smile. Nowadays, you catch me with a wicked twinkle in your eye and I push away the thought of being more. You laugh in the dark–and I am aflutter, like a moth drawn to the light.

Someday, we won’t be strangers anymore and these feelings will fade. Still, I remember this and you and me, three creatures caught in the glow of a lamp. Here they are written, to stay.

“Camellia,” by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

We are no longer strangers, and I still find my heart drawn to another. But once in awhile, I am still drawn to your laugh, and pulled like the tide away from my natural course. Like a moth drawn to a seething flame across the way, you are there and I cannot turn away.

I think about how your eyes would look at me if I ever said these thoughts aloud. Would you still speak to me softly, a small teasing voice barely audible over the hum of other voices? You call me over to go with you and I think my heart might stop.

I care about what you think. More than you know. I am not a people person. You seem to think that I am. We're both still trying to find love and what it means. I don't have an answer for you. I think there's no right answer. Fall in love and you'll know.

I think I'd like to be the person who could make you feel safe and smile if I could, but tides never listen to anyone but the sun and moon. My path takes me back to someone else and you still walk the other way.

Here we are, written to stay.

- "Never in Bloom," by Terra Pham

We are barely strangers, newly acquaintances. Your name lingers at the edge of my tongue, waiting to be called. I do not think you know how shy I am when I speak to everyone but you. I stifle the urge to take your hand and pull you into my orbit. What thoughts fill that intelligent mind of yours?

I’ve made this mistake before, to fall for a beautiful face with a vapid eye and voice. My heart’s still out on which you will be.

I still remember the first time you came through the door and you caught me in a smile. Nowadays, you catch me with a wicked twinkle in your eye and I push away the thought of being more. You laugh in the dark–and I am aflutter, like a moth drawn to the light.

Someday, we won’t be strangers anymore and these feelings will fade. Still, I remember this and you and me, three creatures caught in the glow of a lamp. Here they are written, to stay.

“Camellia,” by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

We are barely strangers, newly acquaintances. Your name lingers at the edge of my tongue, waiting to be called. I do not think you know how shy I am when I speak to everyone but you. I stifle the urge to take your hand and pull you into my orbit. What thoughts fill that intelligent mind of yours?

I’ve made this mistake before, to fall for a beautiful face with a vapid eye and voice. My heart’s still out on which you will be.

I still remember the first time you came through the door and you caught me in a smile. Nowadays, you catch me with a wicked twinkle in your eye and I push away the thought of being more. You laugh in the dark--and I am aflutter, like a moth drawn to the light.

Someday, we won’t be strangers anymore and these feelings will fade. Still, I remember this and you and me, three creatures caught in the glow of a lamp. Here they are written, to stay.

"Camellia," by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

When the world falls quiet and the pieces of me crumble away again, you come to me like a whisper--a white butterfly caught in the breeze on a crowded street. My thoughts linger in a knotted mess before you drop into my world like a pebble tossed into a pond. Ripples cascade outward, washing over me. You transform my world into one with levity and color. I feel your hand in mine and I take a deep breath. There’s so much to be had here, you tell me, wrapped in an infinite twine of metal around my finger.

I think I could love this world even after all it’s done to you and me.

“Visions of Elysium,” Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

Two laps around my neighborhood later, I caught a glimpse of a tree with fading red leaves. The sight caught in my throat and chest, swallowed between shallow breaths and heavy steps. I remembered you, in all your childlike glee, running past me with face turned to the sky.

You never looked back for anyone except me. By the time you turned around, a mile had grown between us, lined with houses old and new.

“My Playground Lover,” by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

Saying goodbye has always haunted me. One goodbye signals the end of a time together, good or bad. Underneath, it signifies the transition to the future where we are different. Each new dawn brings something to our shores and I am remade again. You, of all people, drift into my world repeatedly with this penchant to be drawn up in my eyesight. And I cannot look away, as silently as your sails unfurl in my horizon.

No trumpets or horns announce your arrival, but there you are.

You are my perfect storm, but it is not enough. I have changed so much since I first met you, but the one thing unchanged is this knot in my chest. I see the world in such a myriad of colors now, even as it hangs there, anchored to me and you.

I have a knot that cannot yet be undone. It is a beautiful thing, but an intangible anchor I must let go of, for now. The world I want to see stretches far beyond you and it will swallow me whole someday.

I wish that we will drift like two ships caught in each other’s sails every so often. Still, we will be different. I will drift away as I inevitably do, no fanfare to be had. We are only words in silence caught adrift.

You asked me once what I wrote about. My answer was about a story I will never write--and yet have written in every single story of mine. 

A story of living on, I told you. No matter who the person has to say goodbye to. 

“Kaine,” by Terra Pham

[threseaaaa]

The world does not stop for anyone. It does not pause when a child takes a first breath–and it does not halt when one takes his last.

I remember thinking that years ago, left cheek pressed against an unopened textbook.

Six times around the sun later and the world is a little different. I am different.

I think of a boy I loved and see him marked in blue, a cheeky grin caught on his face. He frowns and runs his fingers over his hair when I tell him he’ll go bald early. We never learn if I’m right about that, or what the name of that flower is. I do not get to find a rap song he likes because he still dislikes them all. He smiles when he catches me humming. Singing. I almost catch him dancing along. At the edge of a cliff, he and I see the world at its best.  Then, we fight until we are at our worst. We say “happy birthday,” as a soft hello and an unknowing farewell. We are both barely eighteen the last time we talk.

He stays eighteen.

The world does not stop for even the best of us. Still, that too is a beauty, I’ve come to learn. I think of the person I am now and all those I’ve met since. New dawns and novel sights come each time I make it around the sun again. It also brought me him, once.

I still find lights in the strangest places, like that night after the rain, the two of us laughing on a cliff side. It’s moments like these, he told me, that make you feel alive.

The world does not stop, but that’s okay too. In its place, I stop for him once in awhile and breathe it all in.

“Six Times Around the Sun,” Terra