Reborn and shivering
Spat out on new terrainUnsure, unconvincing
This faint and shaky hour
He stared out at the vastness of the ocean fumbling with thoughts and emotions he simply was unsure of what to do with. He couldn’t feel the rather chilly waves embracing his feet while sending his body deeper into the forgiving earth that once held him firm and steady in a place he called “paradise”. The firmness, it seemed, was an illusion just as sure as that place of paradise was a dream. None of it existed in his present moment.
This was nothing like anything he had ever known. He wasn’t losing something he desired. He wasn’t seeing the end of some ideal he valued, or the failure to achieve some goal he strived for. No, as he stood staring blankly at a deep blue sea he realized he was losing something he truly loved. He was losing the truth of love in the undertow of his mind and there was nothing he could do to save it. Instead he allowed his eyes to follow the Love he felt as if it were the foamy trails of sea water fading out to the deep and disappearing into the soft sand that gathered all around him. A piece of him was being washed out into the abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.
This moment was not about right or wrong, about winning or losing, it was about the pureness of love being washed away in the currents of the mind. He could feel those little pieces of the remarkable experience he shared falling into the water and vanishing. He could feel the broken shards of the deepest experience of his life falling into the sea to be weathered into smooth pieces of glass that one day would be picked up, marveled at, and kept as a souvenir by someone else. A part of him just wanted to walk into that sea and find those pieces of glass and experience them whole again just one more time. Maybe now that one time would last until his body returned to the dust it was created from. Maybe they could get it right this time. Maybe…
Day one, day one, start over again Step one, step one, I’m barely making sense I’m faking it ’til I’m pseudo making it
From scratch, begin again, but this time I as I…
…And not as we
He shrugged off the melancholy and sat. His mind was in clear turmoil between what it said and what his heart screamed loudly beyond it. The fight was no longer out there but was now within him. The struggle wiped him out most days, yet he knew that with time the transformation would be complete. The struggle itself created a focus within and forced him to deal with the truest conflicts of his experience. The need to leave and to stay all did battle with the reality that he could do neither. All he could do was sit there, shiver, and watch the ocean take away those parts that no longer existed within him.
Even then, even now, he knew that there would always be one piece that would never be shed from him. It was like the Sun as it became the only star in the sky as the others faded away. It had warmed him in his coldest moments just as it had left him frozen in its absence. It had offered him promise of today just as it had reminded him of the darkness of yesterday. It had told him that it would never leave just as it had vanished from that paradise that he would never be able to hold on to.
Even in its absence the Sun was there creating havoc in the evening sky. Even now as he sat shivering and alone he could see the Sun reflecting on everything around him, and he knew that neither time nor distance would save him from the memories of the day even in the realities of the night. It was not, after all, truly completely dark even in the height of the evening’s darkness.
From scratch begin again …but this time I as I and not as we.
It was time. It was as it should be. The Sun and the Moon had decided that this is the way it should be and no man or no man’s mind could change it. He sighed loudly as if the exhalation would blow away the weight that had fallen onto his head. This time I as I and not as we. This time it’s me. This time there is no us, or we, or “together we can conquer anything” line of bullshit to fall back on. This time it was him, his naked body, and the will to find the strength that had carried him throughout his life. Yet he knew that he would never be the same. He would always…always…be different. Something would send him back to her even if only for a second within the confines of his mind. He would always see that smile in his mind. He would always hear that voice in his head. He would always walk with that little piece of what was attached to that little piece of light that reminded him. Yet he now walked not as we, but as that awesome creation of strength and fragility that he was. It both saddened him and renewed his vigor. It both depressed him and gave him great hope. It both made him cry and made him smile. It was, after all, a dichotomy just as every single aspect of life was. This time, though, he would not resist it, fight it, or pretend it didn’t exist. He would embrace it, experience it, and love it as part of who he was.
He kissed his hand gently, closing his eyes to see her one more time press her lips to his own. As tears formed in his eyes he knelt to the sea and let that kiss go into the water.
Goodbye my Lover. I shall never forget you.