Deliverance Poem by Lawrence Ji

There's a boy and there’s a girl and
when they meet, it’s slow fire melting.
Over the course of several months,
flickered flames orange to red,
and the boy, unknowingly, falls
in love; he can't bring her anything but pain
he locks it away
one summer day, on cold concrete, he gets a letter:
an extremely long rant and a tentative
'I love you' (clasped and signed)

so the boy
wrote a letter back
and slowly
time passed
everynight
sleeptight
first star I see
tonight

There’s something complete about
heartflutterings and fingerbitings,
how it grew, how the boy should have
known, how judgment thins, how
for a while, they were really happy, how
the girl, who had a dark past, was starting to
smile again, how the boy, who always felt
rejected, started to feel like he belonged
how evolution occurs:
1
2
5
10
20
30
50
100
500
1000
consequences for love
their letters were found
The parents were the ones who found them
naturally infuriated by parent pretension
the girl was pushed away from the boy
and the boy picked up the cloak of shadows
he let his heart fade to black once again
he burned the letters
burn, smolder, until it’s an obsession
tormenting him each night
unrest, unease, fear

funny how the heart heals
only this time with a hole in his heart, just large enough –
perhaps

funny how the heart tricks
her love’s original pulse – twisted
painful, restless, awake at night
funny how the heart tires.
funny how we can learn to hate love.

blink once and you’ll forget
where the boy and girl once stood, holding hands
stood a grinning demon and a frowning angel without wings
with nothing but the letter of their sins
to remember the past

deliverance.