Lovers on ice

There's something about love letters written and read within warm evenings, cosy underneath the bundles collected throughout the day.

Without the sun to shine through the paper, the words can remain precious. It's a secret made to suffer during the day, just waiting to be spoken.

Spending the days apart from one another, for the lovers, the nights came like a gift. The moon's glow was dim. Much cooler. Safer. It came with a quiet, its soft spotlight reserved for the pair. And it waited just past the trees, where a hidden pond transformed into a stage. With the moon skating across its surface, waiting until the lovers met. Their hugs seeming sacred, precious like a jewel found in only the darkest of mines. Easily looked over, if one were not able to recognise its precious beauty.

Lying atop tufts of soft grass, the lovers were able to come to a better understanding of one another. Learning what it meant to love one another. A feeling that they had never come across the pleasure of meeting. It seemed to greet them as a friend, so that they grew curious of it. Never truly recognising.

Their ran chatter undisturbed by the world running beside them, as they sat in their little corner of paradise. Talking of whatever interested them, whether that seemed to be everything, or nothing at all.

The gift of the nights was one that fluctuated with the moon's mood. Whether it decided to stay long, or give up its battle with the sun early. The lovers never felt as though their time spent was enough, and they didn’t know how to confront that. Whether they should challenge the comfortability they had grown in together. Or remain fallen in their routine, in fantasies they were scared to grow out of.

With their eyes looking out to the pond in front of them. They counted the dust that flew from the moons ice skates. Catching it into their hands before throwing it back into the sky. Wishing that they day could wait, just for them. So that just for once, they could experience the privilege of growing tired of each other. They wanted to know what it meant to experience enough of a person, so much so that time spent apart was needed. Just so that they could come back, and learn of what they missed in the evolution that occurred whilst they were separated.

In the brightness that the sun offered to them, their small corner of paradise was quickly ruined. No longer hidden by the trees, as light stabbed its way through the gap in the leaves.

Suddenly they were shy.

Lips refusing to open and speak, no matter how much they wanted to.

It was so much more intimidating to see each other so clearly. Every single colour that the world had to offer becoming much more saturated. The earth seeming so bright. When in they nights, they were both a little blurry. Crowded by fields of dark blues and foggy greys.

The days were spent with low glance and telepathic communication.

So, they remained anxious, separately fearing that they did not know each other as much as they hoped. The love that they had begun to recognise, once again becoming a stranger. Nothing more than a curious object placed in a spot they never paid attention to. They were growing apart, ever so gently. No matter, how much they hoped the moon, and her spotlight would keep them close. When the winter came to its end, the ice on the pond grew thin, and eventually the moon fell through. Splashing the love letters that they had created. The paper ripping in half. Separating the lovers on ice.

- Mahalia Otshudy