the in-between of conversations of love.

a haibun

By Heather Smith

in those few moments between my words and hers, the time seemed to stop for just i. kronus must’ve given me a gift; for the seconds melded into centuries, the light of the sun transfixed on the side of her face. the contours of her cheeks were illuminated in a way i could never explain. it was her beauty. her pure, raw beauty that i could never describe, only study. if you captured a part of her soul in a bottle i believe you’d have a blooming cosmic purple flower that stretches the length of the sky and outshines the stars. a portrait could not contain her. paint and film and photographs could not come close to what she is and so i sit here for centuries, my words tumbling into worship, drenching her in a golden kind of syrup, trying to find the proof that she once existed with me. a cataract of clear resin encases her body, trying to shield her from any pain, any hurt, any harm, time really does try to hold her close.

but you could never capture her. you could never truly study her, contain her, shield her. you could never bottle her up or stop the way that her mouth moves, speaking in a flowered voice only to you. and i believe that that is why time began moving again, slowly but surely the moments returning to what they were. you could never understand the shape of her emotion and you could never restrain it from happening. time works so hard to keep her in it’s arms. but the titans did not win against the gods, and kronus lost his grip on the clock somewhere, and time began moving forward.

she said: “what do you
mean when you say that?” i shrugged.
i said i loved her.