The giedd of us two together

for K.

He is introduced in the most bizarre way possible.

“He’s you, but different,” my partner says.

Ages later, there is this incredible pain.

Ages before, a single stranded figure cries out on an empty island, “Eadwacer!”

I knew that story from before. It didn’t make any sense and it was delightful in it. How countless scholars tried to understand the Old English verses, only to come up with nothing, with possibilities and doubts, and question marks. I love it dearly, for the very love of contrariness.

*

And so, he is introduced. We sit down all together, eat and talk, and laugh. I think nothing of it. I don’t see what’s in him that is so similar in me, not in the least. He becomes a faint figure in the landscape of my life, someone you say, “Oh, him? Yeah, he’s a friend of…” when he’s mentioned.

Ages later, my throat clenches so hard I forget how to breathe. I think I’ll go mad from the pain. I don’t. For a brief moment, I wish I did.

Ages before, rain is pouring hard, whipping the face of a crying figure. They’re fragile and all alone on an island, surrounded by rocks, with the cold crawling up inside their skin, separated from their family, their tribe. Blood was shed here before. We don’t know where or why exactly but it is evident in the sheer violence in the air around. Blood was shed here. War. Battle, and pain, and loss.

*

I think almost a year passes like this, with occasional parties and laughs, and the mass of people we both know that pours over our lives. And then somehow, the air feels different but I don’t notice it at first.

I say a stupid joke off-handedly. I say, “...and after eating it we’re gonna die from diabetes!” and it’s a scoff, a short giggle at best, while making a cake together at a mutual friend’s house, five or six people at the same time, a whirlwind of flour, butter and voices.

Then, it’s not a pause. But it’s a second; in this same second ages ago a thunder crashes, and ages later a sharp inhale stings my lungs, and I don’t know any of that yet, all I know is: his sharp eyes that don’t match the colour of his hair catch mine in a too-close look and he counters, “Like my grandma!”, the most cheerful tone on Earth. No one else hears that. I do.

I realise suddenly: this is not the same person. Not that polite acquaintance. He’s new. I want to know him, see him, turn him in my palms like colourful stones, or glass balls. We end up talking the whole evening, and people around us leave, and the night falls on us, and we still talk, and these eyes are sharp blue needle points.

I am struck. I learn his colours, his smells, his voice, his music. I learn his hands and his smiles. I write poems, ever the hopeless romantic. I don’t see the sky closing in on me, and the wind catching up to bring the storm.

*

My partner was right. He is me, but different. I don’t believe in souls and yet his soul is my soul and my soul is his, in every possible meaning. There is so much longing my knees almost give out under me.

Ages later, I come home and I feel stranded on an island. I left my family; it’s not dramatic. We hugged and I even mustered a faint smile. I drive for an hour to come to a house I call a home out of habit. It feels empty to me then. It’s a different life, different from the one I had with him, and that one ended so abruptly anyway. I’ve had another one after that, where I collected all the pieces. And that one ended, too. And I reached the edge of a cliff, and I looked down.

“There is death down there,” says the voice in me and it’s not a threat, it’s a calm, sweet promise. I want to jump. There is only one thing I want to do before that. So I walk to the edge of the island and I cry out “Eadwacer!”

Ages before, that lone figure weeps, beaten up and defeated. The scholars cannot understand their song. Is it a love poem? But then why the words about loving and hating their Wulf, their Eadwacer? Is it an elegy? But then why the story of that blood-thirsty war? Is it a riddle? Why then all this longing for their embrace?

It is as if a story cannot be all of that. But it can. Of course it can.

*

Eventually, I break up with my partner because I know we’ve fallen out of love. It’s sad in this quiet, calm sadness; it’s fine. I keep seeing K, Eadwacer, Wulf. I don’t understand any of it and I want all of it. I have no idea how one soul can live in two people and yet it happens. We end up tangled up in each other so much. It's not dating or sex, though that would be so much easier. No; it reaches somewhere beyond that. I dream of putting my forehead to his forehead, so we don’t have to use any more words, even if we’re great at words, stories, poems, we’re great at laughter, we’re great at poking each other’s darkness and seeing what’ll happen.

Ages later, my cries are answered. He calls me immediately and then talks to me all evening, until he makes sure I won’t fall anywhere but asleep, half the world away in another country. When I left that afternoon from my father’s house, I thought I’d die. But my soul reached out to itself, through it all, and didn’t let me. He didn’t let me.

Ages before, the solitary figure ends their wallowing song, their last words ringing in the air, “The riddle of us two together.” The story of us two together. The ballad of us. The elegy. The passion. Uncer giedd geador. They’re right.

*

We keep getting tangled up so much it eventually chokes us. We could spare each other so much pain if we knew better, but we don’t. We try. We really try, in the most broken way.

We don’t know how to be together and perhaps we also can’t, or don’t want to. It’s not a love story and it is, of different love, ages later. But first it feels as if my eyes imploded and my heart stopped; between one beat and the next, there she is: emptiness so vast you might get lost in her forever. Coming undone is a verb; a process, dynamic, rageful, and the air smells like blood. You can’t see the violence but you can feel it around.

And then, I finally say in the harshest, most broken voice: I can’t. We say goodbye one last time. I’m hoping he’ll come back different but I can’t bring myself to really believe it. At that time, I think this is how it ends.

The scholars will keep debating on the story, on the events, the circumstances, the meaning of it all. On the duality of Wulf and Eadwacer, and why that figure longs for them, for him, two names, one person or two people as if one, as opposed, loved and hated, and so much needed.

*

And so, there is this incredible pain.

That single stranded figure cries out to their Eadwacer, their Wulf.

And then silence. The storm has to pass eventually, and it does. Night gives way, and another life begins, again and again, as many times as it has to. I go on. I pick up the pieces, put them together, like a jigsaw puzzle. So much time passes and my soul is still his soul, it’s the same soul, two bodies, two countries, and yet it still knows itself. I don’t fight it. It is how it is, so it must be this way and not another. I build another life and then, one day, he reaches out to me. I reply. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, we build it back, separated by the world, careful not to crush the pieces that are still waiting to be picked up.

Even on that remote island the sun has to come out again eventually.

He hurt me so much and I hurt him. This is not special. We hurt other people and they hurt us. When we talk, we don’t know it yet, and we’d never think it possible, but one day, ages later, he’ll save my life, I’ll tell him I love him, and he’ll reply.

Uncer giedd geador.