Glass and Gold

The Reversal

0505.2025

(for Yivannia, in a season of bluebells)

Of all the bluebells,

you were the rose—

late-blooming, miniature,

and eternally eternal.

The bluebells rang out and were gone,

too shallow to drink

where I had sunk.

But you:

rooted.

Listening.

Bright as a sun

kept secret in the earth.

Let the world turn on,

watching with its blind eye—

let it breathe heavy with opinion,

never knowing

we reversed the rotation.

Let it churn,

let it spin its shiny wheel.

We stepped off.

Let everything be what it craves to be—

the loud, the endless, the cruel.

But we?

We moved the stars in silence.

We learned how to build a chapel

from ruin.

Even our kindness was brutalized,

left trembling,

and still

we cupped the ones we loved

in ruined hands—

as if they were birds

and we the last branches.

Now dawn unrolls

like a ribbon tied high in the sky—

and the ark of it is inevitable.

So:

Let us laugh.

Let us lean into gossip.

Let us sip,

let us flirt,

let us wear the faces they gave us

like masks made of glass.

Let them bring offerings:

flowers,

chocolate,

the slick syllables of praise.

Let them pry and press

as if our thighs

were vaults of gold—

but we,

we hold the key.

We know.

And it will always be

no.

And should you stagger,

and should you question

the worth of your breath

I will take your hand—

not gently,

but rightly—

and steer you from the fire

that asks you to kneel.

You are not meant for less.

You were born for the throne.

m.c.f.