HP: Your Sweet Time
Title: Your Sweet Time
Author: schmevil
Characters: Severus Snape, Lilly Evans Potter
Word Count: 528 [poem]
Notes: Written for parsimonia, by way of help_haiti
1. Workroom, Early Morning
His first instinct is to prepare enough for two,
Nearly twenty years after the fact.
The extras and leftovers go into jars,
preserves and stores, labeled to the second and micro-second:
On this day I peeled; on this day I cleaned; on this day I stirred.
On this day, like every other day, I remembered her:
hating, loving, having. Nothing wasted
in the exercise of his least favorite muscle,
justifiable, rational, rationalized -
a hundred hundred jars of excuses.
This one contains chamomile, which is deniable,
clean of any relationship,
save that he was thinking of her when he picked it,
the ugly scar on her left ankle.
This one contains phoenix tears, locked up
and shoved in the back of a water-stained cupboard,
in the room where all the others are;
Hardly an afterthought, its placement deliberate
as every jar. It is by far the most valuable, least favorite,
its only use a wasted might-have-been.
But this other one - jelly, mint, petals - is simpler:
2. Nursery Rhyme
If he were the sort to give flowers,
- for a moment imagine it: different enough to satisfy,
holding together only long enough to disappoint;
the sort of cruel best practice, that is his life's work -
He would spit on her namesake (too pretty),
and anything too poetic, he would without even
faint praise, damn.
If he were the sort to give affection,
- less likely (flowers having their practical uses) -
tokens, proof, or praise,
they would be paltry but gladly given:
Gutter grown, sun bleached and neglected,
lacking grace (pretty smelling), and every third petal missing,
plucked, withered or strange.
If he were the sort to give flowers,
some things, the littlest ones, would be different,
and others just the same. Until she left him,
he would think only, we have so much in common,
and not, we are different in so many fundamental ways.
If he were different, flower giving, guided by care,
She would tell him,
- and how easily she would speak: without hesitation,
without distraction; no competition for her affection;
for even his dreams can be easy -
You took your sweet time, darling.
She would tell him,
- and oh, how easily if he would speak -
You took your sweet time, darling, but I've got no need for sweet.
But he is not that kind:
3. Tea: Black and Piping
He is not that kind.
Care and solicitude only for his memories,
his hundred hundred jars of ingredients,
and somehow each one, her her her.
Fixed with the gloss of time served,
time spent twisting them to new shapes;
Moments divided and divided into
seconds, hours, and years.
So tenderly nursed, these anchor-less
cultivars, uniquely pretty and carefully engineered.
Without proper soil they cannot take hold,
cannot but stay stunted, frozen in their glass jars,
while he carves them up, slowly chips them away.
The lonely teaspoons pile up,
carrying with them things said and unsaid.
What he hadn't said, such simple things, are outweighed
by the rest:
If he were the kind, if he had ever been,
things would have ended just the same.
Author: schmevil
Characters: Severus Snape, Lilly Evans Potter
Word Count: 528 [poem]
Notes: Written for parsimonia, by way of help_haiti
1. Workroom, Early Morning
His first instinct is to prepare enough for two,
Nearly twenty years after the fact.
The extras and leftovers go into jars,
preserves and stores, labeled to the second and micro-second:
On this day I peeled; on this day I cleaned; on this day I stirred.
On this day, like every other day, I remembered her:
hating, loving, having. Nothing wasted
in the exercise of his least favorite muscle,
justifiable, rational, rationalized -
a hundred hundred jars of excuses.
This one contains chamomile, which is deniable,
clean of any relationship,
save that he was thinking of her when he picked it,
the ugly scar on her left ankle.
This one contains phoenix tears, locked up
and shoved in the back of a water-stained cupboard,
in the room where all the others are;
Hardly an afterthought, its placement deliberate
as every jar. It is by far the most valuable, least favorite,
its only use a wasted might-have-been.
But this other one - jelly, mint, petals - is simpler:
2. Nursery Rhyme
If he were the sort to give flowers,
- for a moment imagine it: different enough to satisfy,
holding together only long enough to disappoint;
the sort of cruel best practice, that is his life's work -
He would spit on her namesake (too pretty),
and anything too poetic, he would without even
faint praise, damn.
If he were the sort to give affection,
- less likely (flowers having their practical uses) -
tokens, proof, or praise,
they would be paltry but gladly given:
Gutter grown, sun bleached and neglected,
lacking grace (pretty smelling), and every third petal missing,
plucked, withered or strange.
If he were the sort to give flowers,
some things, the littlest ones, would be different,
and others just the same. Until she left him,
he would think only, we have so much in common,
and not, we are different in so many fundamental ways.
If he were different, flower giving, guided by care,
She would tell him,
- and how easily she would speak: without hesitation,
without distraction; no competition for her affection;
for even his dreams can be easy -
You took your sweet time, darling.
She would tell him,
- and oh, how easily if he would speak -
You took your sweet time, darling, but I've got no need for sweet.
But he is not that kind:
3. Tea: Black and Piping
He is not that kind.
Care and solicitude only for his memories,
his hundred hundred jars of ingredients,
and somehow each one, her her her.
Fixed with the gloss of time served,
time spent twisting them to new shapes;
Moments divided and divided into
seconds, hours, and years.
So tenderly nursed, these anchor-less
cultivars, uniquely pretty and carefully engineered.
Without proper soil they cannot take hold,
cannot but stay stunted, frozen in their glass jars,
while he carves them up, slowly chips them away.
The lonely teaspoons pile up,
carrying with them things said and unsaid.
What he hadn't said, such simple things, are outweighed
by the rest:
If he were the kind, if he had ever been,
things would have ended just the same.