We first met under moonlight's gentle gaze. Your hair swayed lightly in the late summer breeze, the first faint outlines of your breath visible as you exhaled. The night was clear and starless, as if to starker contrast and accentuate you. You sat there, waiting for me, your phone's display highlighting the elegant curves of your facial features.
Having gone through heartbreak not long before, I was still hurting, gingerly mending and tending to my sorrow. Yet as I drew closer to you, I felt, as if guided by an invisible aura, the shatters of my heart inch together ever more. It was you, I was sure of it. I could not pinpoint what exactly about you, just... you.
We talked for hours that night, about everything and nothing in particular. Within the blink of an eye, the sun had once again started its daily ascent and we were ripped out of our own little world, where nothing existed but us two. My body may have had to reluctantly take its leave, but my mind and thoughts lingered. Every synapse that fired carried a transmission of you, every second that ticked rang your name.
The next months spent with you went by in a whirlwind of passion as we tried to navigate waters that were unfamiliar to you. At times, you raged storm and thunder, threatening to capsize us, but against all odds, we managed to stay afloat; with time, we grew accustomed to the rolling motions of your ever gentler and calmer seas. Your kind soul nurtured me back to health, helping me bud and bloom in ways that I had never thought were possible.
Yet what flowers, must eventually wilt. The winds of winter caught us off guard; howling gales ripped my petals away and the icy cold bit into what little was left. You froze the waters under our feet and we came to a jarring halt, our hull not strong enough to pierce through and continue. The frost we saw climbing up the windows outside was reflected in our eyes and words, and no fireplace could melt the tension suspended above our heads. You tried to reach out, but my stems grew thorns, cutting into your flesh as you held on, the trickling path of your blood mirrored by the tears on your pained face.
The awakening of spring came too late for us. Separately, we licked our wounds under the warming gaze of the season of rebirth. Like clockwork, summer came and went, this time devoid of your touch. Miraculously, the seeds you had sown the year before bloomed anew in full splendour, yet while they looked the same, they lacked the depth and dimension that only you could imbue into them.
My thoughts waded through countless scenarios of what could have been, each travelling down their own respective path before eventually converging at one singularity - you. Only when I held the slowly wilting petals in my hand once again did I fully recognise the lasting impression that you had left behind; without you, I would still be slumbering in eternal sleep.
Was my absence felt just as strongly too, I wondered? My very own sword of Damocles hung above me, eating away and consuming my thoughts, yet I did not want the question answered, preferring to defer to my self-made state of limbo, where I could at least pretend with certainty that I was missed, rather than face the potential, cold, heartbreaking truth.
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