come away, o child, to the waters and the wild for the world is more full of weeping than you can understand
Staring at the waves, I expect them to explain to me how already my memories of him are changing, turning grayer—only the most vibrant of emotions remain to color them, brief and explosive. Joy, or childish anger, or the regret of things I did not say—and layered atop of that, prominent and smarting as sharply as a wound, is the thought that I should not have to regret the things I did not say.
It is as if overnight I went from a child, to nothing. A piece of me has been cleaved away; the lens through which I’ve understood the world is cracked, and those fissures have spread into every aspect of who I am. Who else, who else will leave? and what had I done? What had I done, to not be good enough for him to stay?
Had he not loved me enough? Had I not been good enough a son? And yes, yes I know I should go to my mother, I should say, he left, or to Hilde, and I should share in our grief—but I cannot, I cannot, because when I stare at the sea I know that I cannot let them see me dissolve as salt does in water, as I am now, with hot angry tears streaming down my face—
At first, I do not notice her. I don’t notice her until her wing enters my peripheral and I start, glancing over my shoulder. I don’t recognize her. I have never seen it before in my life. And then—because of her unfamiliarity, perhaps, because I do not have to be strong for someone I do not even know—the gesture of her open wing is too much for me to refuse. Later, my sudden need for comfort might embarrass me. I don’t discuss my feelings openly, and I never have; so why would I show such vulnerability to a stranger? I might even hate myself for it, tonight or tomorrow, when the grief has set like cement and taken a permanent form in my heart.
(I will say, to convince myself it was alright to accept her comfort, that it is because of her softness; the way she belongs to the earth, all honey-brown and autumn-orange. Later, I might say to myself it is because she is the first pegasus I have met that outside of my relatives that retains the legginess of youth instead of the supple musculature of a warrior, of a Halycon).
This is to say, she is familiar and not at all. This is to say, she is all the things I recognize and none of them. I find her embrace soft and warm; she smells like the forest in the sunlight, and, and, I turn my tear-covered face into her shoulder.
I am breaking.
I am breaking, like the sea against the shore. Over, and over again. I wonder if this is life; if this broken-rib pain in the side is life, and loving, if it is what it means to be growing. I don’t understand it. I cannot fathom why he would have left, why—why he would leave without giving a reason.
It’s because none of them would have been good enough.
My voice is hollowed, choked with tears, when I ask: “Why do people we love leave?”
I don’t know if she has an answer.
But I hope she does. I hope fate is real, and that is what has brought her to me.
It is as if overnight I went from a child, to nothing. A piece of me has been cleaved away; the lens through which I’ve understood the world is cracked, and those fissures have spread into every aspect of who I am. Who else, who else will leave? and what had I done? What had I done, to not be good enough for him to stay?
Had he not loved me enough? Had I not been good enough a son? And yes, yes I know I should go to my mother, I should say, he left, or to Hilde, and I should share in our grief—but I cannot, I cannot, because when I stare at the sea I know that I cannot let them see me dissolve as salt does in water, as I am now, with hot angry tears streaming down my face—
At first, I do not notice her. I don’t notice her until her wing enters my peripheral and I start, glancing over my shoulder. I don’t recognize her. I have never seen it before in my life. And then—because of her unfamiliarity, perhaps, because I do not have to be strong for someone I do not even know—the gesture of her open wing is too much for me to refuse. Later, my sudden need for comfort might embarrass me. I don’t discuss my feelings openly, and I never have; so why would I show such vulnerability to a stranger? I might even hate myself for it, tonight or tomorrow, when the grief has set like cement and taken a permanent form in my heart.
(I will say, to convince myself it was alright to accept her comfort, that it is because of her softness; the way she belongs to the earth, all honey-brown and autumn-orange. Later, I might say to myself it is because she is the first pegasus I have met that outside of my relatives that retains the legginess of youth instead of the supple musculature of a warrior, of a Halycon).
This is to say, she is familiar and not at all. This is to say, she is all the things I recognize and none of them. I find her embrace soft and warm; she smells like the forest in the sunlight, and, and, I turn my tear-covered face into her shoulder.
I am breaking.
I am breaking, like the sea against the shore. Over, and over again. I wonder if this is life; if this broken-rib pain in the side is life, and loving, if it is what it means to be growing. I don’t understand it. I cannot fathom why he would have left, why—why he would leave without giving a reason.
It’s because none of them would have been good enough.
My voice is hollowed, choked with tears, when I ask: “Why do people we love leave?”
I don’t know if she has an answer.
But I hope she does. I hope fate is real, and that is what has brought her to me.
