TODAY, FROM A DISTANCE, I SAW YOU / WALKING AWAY, AND WITHOUT A SOUND / THE GLITTERING FACE OF A GLACIER / SLID INTO THE SEA.
☙❧
When the sobbing boy settles into my embrace, burying his tear-stained face in the curve of my shoulder, I feel myself steel in a long, slow breath. My heart hurts for him. He is young, and aching; experiencing what I can only imagine is the first real hurt of his life. It is in times like this, though, that I know that I must be steady. Hurt is only survived by persistence. Persistence is what he must learn from this, to stay steadfast-
I know this in the quiet way that I know all things that I have lived before. I wish that I could wipe his tears, or cure him of his aching, but all I can do for him is remain steady and tuck a wing across his shoulders to keep the wind at bay.
He speaks in a voice that is rubbed raw from crying. Why do people we love leave?
It isn’t an easy question to answer. It isn’t an easy question, but-
(but unfortunately, it is a question I know more deeply and innately than I would like to admit.)
“Well,” I say, swallowing hard, “sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it. Sometimes they leave to keep us safe, to protect us. Sometimes they leave us because they have other responsibilities, and sometimes they leave us because…” My voice trails off, then, and I have to force back a sigh, my eyes fluttering closed. “…sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run. It isn’t because they don’t love us enough, and it isn’t our fault, but sometimes they just… ache too much, and they leave because of it.” I take a breath, and then I say something crueler, because I have to; because I won’t hurt the boy further by lying to him, or being too kind, or too sentimental. “Sometimes people are selfish. Sometimes it doesn’t matter to them how much they are loved, or how much they are needed – they leave because they want to, because something else matters more. Sometimes people are simply cruel. Sometimes they simply don’t care, and they leave unthinkingly.”
And here is where I pause, really pause, and let my tongue flit out to lick salt off my lips. There is one more cruel truth to leaving, and I think that it might be the cruelest one of them all: sometimes, it is inevitable.
“And sometimes,” I say, my voice hitching around the words, “love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you – sometimes people have to leave.” In the back of my mind, I can hear the scream of starlings, half-burnt, their nests ablaze; and I can smell smoke, and a burning grove, a dying tree whose collapse will immediately be filled by newborn branches. In the back of my mind, I am thinking of myself, the morning before I leave for good, adjusting the emerald green of my armor, braiding lilies between the plates in my armor, humming. I am thinking of myself, a smile settled across my lips as I brush against the shoulder of the person that I, in all my lives, have loved most of all, and I am thinking of the ways that I assured him that I would be careful, because I always was, and that I would be fine, because I always was, and that this was only routine, because it was, and I am thinking of the way that I promised him that I would be back before he knew it, that my sister had sent some of those raspberry-flavored pastries that our mother used to make. I think I promised him that we’d share them, when I got back. You know, I’d said, you need a break.
I lied.
Dying was easier than knowing what I left when I did. (Dying was easier than knowing that I’d broken my promise.)
The curve of my throat comes to rest over the boy’s forehead, and I pull him tighter in my embrace. “But sometimes,” I say, softly, “sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill in the spaces they leave behind.”
I am still waiting for-
I am still waiting to find him, again, or to be found.
(But how many people I've come to love in the meantime!)
@Aeneas || ;~; || ted kooser, "after years"
Speech
☙❧
When the sobbing boy settles into my embrace, burying his tear-stained face in the curve of my shoulder, I feel myself steel in a long, slow breath. My heart hurts for him. He is young, and aching; experiencing what I can only imagine is the first real hurt of his life. It is in times like this, though, that I know that I must be steady. Hurt is only survived by persistence. Persistence is what he must learn from this, to stay steadfast-
I know this in the quiet way that I know all things that I have lived before. I wish that I could wipe his tears, or cure him of his aching, but all I can do for him is remain steady and tuck a wing across his shoulders to keep the wind at bay.
He speaks in a voice that is rubbed raw from crying. Why do people we love leave?
It isn’t an easy question to answer. It isn’t an easy question, but-
(but unfortunately, it is a question I know more deeply and innately than I would like to admit.)
“Well,” I say, swallowing hard, “sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it. Sometimes they leave to keep us safe, to protect us. Sometimes they leave us because they have other responsibilities, and sometimes they leave us because…” My voice trails off, then, and I have to force back a sigh, my eyes fluttering closed. “…sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run. It isn’t because they don’t love us enough, and it isn’t our fault, but sometimes they just… ache too much, and they leave because of it.” I take a breath, and then I say something crueler, because I have to; because I won’t hurt the boy further by lying to him, or being too kind, or too sentimental. “Sometimes people are selfish. Sometimes it doesn’t matter to them how much they are loved, or how much they are needed – they leave because they want to, because something else matters more. Sometimes people are simply cruel. Sometimes they simply don’t care, and they leave unthinkingly.”
And here is where I pause, really pause, and let my tongue flit out to lick salt off my lips. There is one more cruel truth to leaving, and I think that it might be the cruelest one of them all: sometimes, it is inevitable.
“And sometimes,” I say, my voice hitching around the words, “love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you – sometimes people have to leave.” In the back of my mind, I can hear the scream of starlings, half-burnt, their nests ablaze; and I can smell smoke, and a burning grove, a dying tree whose collapse will immediately be filled by newborn branches. In the back of my mind, I am thinking of myself, the morning before I leave for good, adjusting the emerald green of my armor, braiding lilies between the plates in my armor, humming. I am thinking of myself, a smile settled across my lips as I brush against the shoulder of the person that I, in all my lives, have loved most of all, and I am thinking of the ways that I assured him that I would be careful, because I always was, and that I would be fine, because I always was, and that this was only routine, because it was, and I am thinking of the way that I promised him that I would be back before he knew it, that my sister had sent some of those raspberry-flavored pastries that our mother used to make. I think I promised him that we’d share them, when I got back. You know, I’d said, you need a break.
I lied.
Dying was easier than knowing what I left when I did. (Dying was easier than knowing that I’d broken my promise.)
The curve of my throat comes to rest over the boy’s forehead, and I pull him tighter in my embrace. “But sometimes,” I say, softly, “sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill in the spaces they leave behind.”
I am still waiting for-
I am still waiting to find him, again, or to be found.
(But how many people I've come to love in the meantime!)
@
Speech
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
