Olives us

DIstance

We carry ourselves like olive trees.
Leaves on thoughts, words of flowers
that bloom and give
and bloom and give
    evergreen, archaic, invasive.

Until the fruit reeks of neglect,
resentful,
fills our tongue with rot
then,
when the rest of the world blossoms,
we chop ourselves down.

We choose soaked sweet branches
to plant inside us.
We relearn to water our senses,
to be aware of the blackbirds,
to tame our wild sprouts only
if we wish to.

We carry ourselves like olive trees.
We face our stormed blue seas
and dive in our marrow
to grow
afresh.

Split hearts, tattooed with petals
tied together in gossamer, stretch

towards the sun. A journey of mornings
stolen in breaths hums through their veins.

In a parallel universe, here, then,
they have inhaled each other.

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Eva Papasoulioti is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry. She lives in Athens, Greece, and translates words for a living. This is her first publication. You can find her on twitter @epapasoulioti and on her blog.