Whittling Down Love

 

Solen Feyissa-N-GpAMItcPc@unsplash


Now that summer has fully receded,
from rough and lazy memories,
I spot a love shaped like a stubby yellow pencil.
Sometimes, while preparing for autumn,
I go about picking up the memories I scattered in summer, one by one,
but that blunted love—I just can’t bring myself to take it with me.

One day, just as that summer was beginning,
I first saw that love—
with a deep and tightly packed core,
a bright yellow exterior, solid and unblemished, dazzling to behold.
I grasped that love without hesitation.
I felt I could draw any picture, no matter the shape,
write even the hardest of stories endlessly and beautifully.

So it was, at the height of that summer,
the love I held had grown quite short.
Its core cracked and worn,
its body tired and marked with my fingernail dents, my bite marks.
Yet still, I resented that love—
for not being the same as before.
Then one day, as the summer’s heat began to ease,
I happened to gaze upon a white wall
filled with drawings and stories.
But what I had drawn and written
by sharpening away that love
wasn’t a deep, beautiful yellow like poster paint.
It was only my pitch-black selfishness.
Blunted by my greed,
longing and passion alike had all been shaved away.
It was a love worn down like a stubby pencil.

Now I can’t bring myself to carry this blunted love—
Could I, perhaps, recover it in a summer yet to come?
Might I meet it again,
tall and unwavering like a sunflower?
Will I be able to paint,
in vibrant strokes,
a summer overflowing with beautiful and bountiful memories?

This one deep, thick longing—I cannot seem to soothe it.

Korean version: https://deposo.tistory.com/76

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