Two lovers hung from an old birch tree, ever so daintily. They swayed in the brisk wind, the ropes around their necks anchoring them to the creaky old tree they considered home. And while the couple never wished to be apart, the fact of the matter was one was afraid to open up to the other.
“Daria, my sweet, you must understand!” Joseph cooed softly, trying so desperately to calm his love. “There is simply no way I can commit so fully at this particular instance in time.”
Daria, choking back tears from her pale cerulean eyes could not understand. All Joseph was willing to do was admit that he liked her, which was all well and good but, alas, he refused to say the blasted word love. Of course the way Joseph felt it nearly killed him just to say he liked her. He even imagined it might have if he was not already dead.
“Joseph, I fear I cannot handle this much longer. How dreadful and dire a situation we’re in. It is a standoff of two towering wills!” The blue in her face got slightly darker in her despair. She understood Joseph’s heart had been broken many times, but she hoped oh so much that he would have trusted her a little more. “We are here for eternity, until we are bones and then dust. You must admit love at some point.”
“Precisely my sweet, sweet kumquat. We have the roads of eternity ahead,” Joseph pointed out.
Daria did not like this response. She turned her head as far away from her lover as she could, aided by a chill gale. The dainty dark-haired Daria stared, discouraged, at the abyss of the night sky splattered with the stars and planets. She could hope to name not but a fraction due to their sheer overwhelming numbers, even given forever and a day. It was a daunting task, nigh impossible, and that was how she felt about her once bright pumpkin, her Joseph. She wondered if she could wish on just one of the plethora of sparkling, glistening stars, and have her love’s heart be mended.
Joseph stared longingly at Daria’s frame. He knew it was rude to stare, but he could not help it. Though he was afraid to say it, he knew he was smitten, he was in love. Oh, what a love it was!
“Just tell her that you love her,” a little coal colored crow cried into dead Joseph’s rotting ear. “You will never regret it, for as long as you are here!”
“My little bird, my little bird, I was told that over and over once upon a time. I find that is not true and I have regretted each time I have said that word. Oh, the loves that have shattered my frame! I have regretted using that word every day, every hour, every minute!” Joseph wailed. He wanted the tears to drain from his eyes but it just could not be so. The little crow, flustered and worried for his friend, soared gracefully next to Daria and pecked at her shoulder.
“Daria, Daria!” The little crow cried. “Joseph is so sad, so heart-broken you see!”
“But what does that have to do with me? What can I do when he so radically refuses to love?”
“You see my girl, what he really needs is someone to cry with,” the crow whistled ever so gently to the stubborn corpse. Daria stared at the little bird, then at the endless sky blanketed with the white smudges of the milky-way. She pondered. She poured over her feelings for the boy and what the crow said, and then came to a conclusion.
“Joseph, if I love you then I must respect you.”
“What, my fragile plum?” Joseph nervously responded, his eyes locking into Daria’s and the key being thrown away.
“Joseph, if you are not ready then I shall no longer insincerely insist you say ‘I love you too’. What you need is someone to be patient, someone to cry with. So for now, instead of boorishly bickering, we shall weep instead.” A brisk night wind lifted up her arm and Daria caressed his frigid cheek. Clouds whelled together in the sky far above, and for a moment water dropped lovingly on the two corpses, dancing and spinning as it descended. Together it seemed as if Joseph and Daria cried through the divine forces of nature.
Under the sobs of the celestial body of sky Joseph whispered ever so faintly, “You too. I love you too.”
The two lovers hanging from a tree learned a lesson that day. Sometimes what you really need is someone to cry with and pour out your troubled soul, and your shattered heart to whether it be black or blue or yellow too. Everyone at some point needs to know they are loved, that someone else will cry with them, and that all will be well. Someone to whisper, “I love you too.”