THE WHITE ROSE PAINTED WITH BLOOD

xv - we are runaways / train windows that hold the world

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[ the boy's pov ]

i watch you as you drink your coffee. we're sitting in a place of warm beige pouring against skin in various directions of pure sensations and cinnamon colors, where the scent of cafe arcadias string strands of bliss through our hair and eyelashes, as if it were autumn once more. it's 7:42 and we'll be late for school at this point, but i'd rather just watch you here. how shocked you'd be if you realized how late we're running.

your eyes flicker over the words like black butterflies flecked with blue freckles flitting back and forth over iridescent ponds that reflected the true existence of spring. your eyelashes streak your soft cheeks as you scan over the words, your eyes moving down the page like falling sensations. your hair brushes the pages like strands of willow hair dipping into glasslike ponds of childhood dreams

your skin is now flushed with cotton candy coral and it feels like tangerine summers and sweet spring days of eating lunch alone under cherry blossoms and clementine trees. it makes my heart beat faster and for flickers fo beige blue moments i feel alive

you're wearing the blue black coat you wore on the rooftop that day, that day when you brought autumn to new life in your art and immortalized that moment in the ink scribbles, black and white sketches that screamed colors of gray blue auburn hues when you were autumn girl. and now, you're winter girl

winter girl reading poetry at the cafe library and dreaming of indigo summers on frozen december mornings

suddenly you look up from your trance, your eyes leaving the pages in a bittersweet goodbye

"what time is it?" you gasp, your eyes widening

"7:51,"

your face holds shock and your mouth forms an o, your brows rising and your eyes like blue brown saucers. you look so sweet that it hurts and my veins ache softly

"we'll go on the subway, it'd take 15 minutes," i laugh at you and before you can answer i lean and take your slender hand in mine.

we run when we are outside. it's cold and the city is drained of color, only shades of bones and pearls and paper and snow that floated like white feathers. it's cold and people are walking the other way like rain falling for gravity but out of the millions of raindrops we decided to go up, now together instead of alone.

we are runaways from far away constellations, runaways who wandered between the ports of andromeda and washed our hair in the aquillian oceans, astronauts lost in fields of sunflowers searching for stars they couldn't find, ripping gardens apart at the seams and leaving only astronomical ruin. we are lost searching for gemini, searching for mercury, reaching for what we can't

reaching for each other's fingertips and like a dream we finally did and now we are running as if we could live forever, even though we are meant to die young in moments like this when it's just us two in the world even in a sea of people it feels as if we could learn how to live, live forever

running through the snow delicately showering from the mercury gray sky toward the train stations you saw in polaroids and ghibli movies

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the train slashes forward at collides with time and light as it moves

soft winter sunlight streaks from the windows and stains the beige cushions with faded blonde. the world moves past us through the window, windows carrying gray city buildings and winter evergreens, not yet coated with snow

we watch the passengers that come and go sometimes, unspoken words and stranger eyes meeting, then glancing away again. of hellos never spoken and goodbyes never uttered

these 15 minutes feel as fleeting as an eternity with you

when we are finally alone, i lean on your shoulder. your red scarf brushes against my face. your hair smells like cherry blossoms, it smells like spring and my unskilled fingers play with strands to form uneven braids. you read star scented poetry and i slowly learn how to pick up the pieces of the human inside me by just being with you

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when we reach school, we walk separate ways so that no one would see us together, so that the idea of us would be kept secret and sacred under ivylined facades, so that the only thing they can see from the outside are two strangers

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