Ode to Young Love
by Lily Thomas
Texas Online Preparatory School
Lily Thomas is a junior at Texas Online Preparatory School. She has been writing since she was 10 years old. After graduation, she plans to study art and animation in college. Lily is passionate about creativity and art of all kinds. She is an amateur writer, poet, artist, and photographer.
I can’t match you for poetry. But what I can do is write this.
It’s November, and I haven’t seen you in 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 months, and yet, you’re still here. You’re a thousand miles away, and you’re still here. Enveloping my brain, just a phone call away, and you’re here, you’re here, you’re here.
It’s getting colder. The plants, somehow, aren’t dying yet, but the months-long heat wave is slowly, slowly ending.
For you, it’s freezing. Every morning, you go outside, and you feel the cold north breeze, while I’m stuck in the southern sea. The Gulf is still brown, similar to the leaves.
Autumn is a transitionary period, it seems—from the blistering heat to the cooling touch of snow. Same, yet the opposite, as spring. I can’t tell whether I love it or hate it.
You can send me your beautiful poetry of stars in the sky, of your love and intensity for the fall. And I’ll be here, I’m here, I’m here. You inspire me to write, even in the mid-month, after trying and trying, when I’ve given up on everything I have. My stories, my work, my love—all of it useless, until you come along.
“Send a letter, darling,” I once said months ago. Before you and me, once again, reunited. Before I understood myself and my feelings. They are ever-changing, I think. “Send a poem, dear,” because your words are loved by me, even if I can’t understand, I’ll try and try and try, because I yearn for it. I yearn for the connection. Your words should be screamed from the rooftops. The world deserves to hear you.)
It’s lemongrass in the autumn, brought indoors to shield it from the windy nights. So tender and soft, like your phantom touch. So confusing and scary, like how everything turns to orange and red.
Scary, like how the clocks fell back. An hour gained, but everything is so dark. It was dark already, why should it have to change? Lethargy and the ocean, washing over me like a weighted blanket. I brushed it off in the past, but I get it now. I get it. It’s so cold. I’m so cold. I’m so tired. It’s so tiring. It hurts. I’m hurt.
I wish you were here.
You couldn’t take the pain away, you’re not capable. Not when the sun won’t shine through my windows, not when the roads are muddy (finally, after such a long drought), not when you’re—
“So far away, and out of sight. I just hope you’ll remember me.”
Well, I think: some things never change.
Send me a message, and I’ll listen. Sometimes I won’t understand it at all, that’s just how my brain works, but I want to try. I want that chance.
We are autumn. We are transitioning into something real. From September, to now, the seasons are upon us:
You are autumn.
I can be spring.
Who knows what that means—
I can’t see the beauty, but you are. You’re beautiful. You can see it. I can take your hand, and you can guide me. I’ll trust you.
It’s November, and I haven’t seen you, yet you’re still here.
I’ll be here too.
