Eternal Damnation (Seasons Change, Seasons Grow)

A poem by Chynna A. Juab

The imprints of your sole leaves

A cut on my back as the spring
Awakens a bloom in my chest,
Of one I can’t foster; unbreathing—
Reckless.
Painful, restless.

Eternity scalds the back of my palms

I know it like I know the beat
Of your heart against my own;
Thumping like a drum, marching to
And fro. The butterfly flaps its wings
and I know the expanse of your cosmo.

Fall bequeathed upon the hitch of my breath

And the color that paints this ground isn’t so red
I remember your face in the sky painted purple and pink;
Of the stone that runs across my shoulders, my bones.
Your own heart you left beating in between my fingers,
saying it never really belonged to you; never, at any point.

Heaven could freeze over, and it could thaw all the same
But in winter I found the biggest part
Of me I left, together with your heart
Later, then, is a promise fulfilled, upon the first sprout of green.
”See you next spring, when the birds will sing;
When the cherry blossoms fall into my lap, with the wind.”
 Eternity scalds the back of my palms
I know you like I know my own mind
In the cusp of erosion and of an ending beyond the horizon,
I cradle tightly the world of your own:
There, will I ever find my place?
Will it be in your heart, your familiar face?

Heaven could freeze over and melt all the same

And even then, the branch wouldn’t have snapped
Even then, the flowers I’ve grown to tend will bloom
Giving its final farewell, with my final breath.