‘I’ve started to read your star sign.’
I could’ve guessed you were water before I knew your birthday. Just by looking at you I could tell.
With our fingers linked, I could feel how free you were.
There’s so much of you, I can only get a handful at a time.
You’re an ocean, a lake, a river – you soothe. Your waves of peace ripple out.
I’m fire, setting everything ablaze.
I look at you and I light up. You lean towards me and I burst into flames. I start claiming and conquering the world.
You put it out and remind me to be gentle. You remind me that everything is already ours.
Your cheeks are covered in constellations and your eyes are the colour of the sky.
‘I’ve stopped reading your star sign.’
Of course you’re water. So consuming. Always moving.
You only let me take a handful of you at a time. I tried grasping at you but it’s no good. You slip through my fingers.
I’m red-hot passion, filled with love and depth and strength.
I could take out anything –
Except you.
You put me out and tell me to be peaceful and gentle and soft.
Don’t you know I was born to claim land and warm people? I could swallow the world.
We ended by the water as though you needed to be backed up – as though if my flames licked at you, if I put up a fight, you could call on a tsunami to take me down.
The constellations on your cheeks don’t show our future and your eyes changed colour to storm clouds.
Words by Caitlin Tait
Image by Meg Bielby
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