Separation

I’d never beheld the sun as it was. The cast of gold that bathed the pier and the reds that spread out on the edge of the sea were vibrant and dance-like. My white tennis shoes pitted down the sidewalk as the crash of the wave could be heard loudly. The beach descended from the railing beside me and my companion.

“C’mon,” a large hand gripped me with a gentle touch. Gazing at me were two large brown eyes that peered through shaggy bangs. The smile he wore on his face looked slightly worn, and different than the one I had seen on him in the early days of our acquaintance. It was as if he knew something was coming, something he could not articulate to me. Still, he looked at me with compassion. It was the same look that had made me feel visible, the same look that I could feel on myself in a room before I even turned to him, the one that sought me out even when I was hidden to the world. Where I was almost mythical in temperament to others, I was his strange reality.

“Slow down, I’m trying to catch up,” we laughed at one another as I trip ahead and he caught me. I would never be able to name what we were. What he was to me, let alone what I was to him. Still, despite the mess behind us, despite the valleys ahead of us, I wanted to keep him in my life. If he could be patient, I could be open. My fears would subside upon the presentation of stability and protection, and there were days when that had begun to happen.

Ice would only last for so long in the light of the sun, winter would cease with the disarming touch of spring, and one would stop withholding themself from vulnerability upon finding someone who they would allow in. My weapons would be lowered if he could show that it was deserved. I had told myself up until now I was being wise, guarding myself against any possible harm he could bring me. Now though, I was starting to wonder if I was being unfair. He was making an attempt at goodness, and virtue, doing me good even at his own cost. My own nature inclined me to see myself as the problem before him.

We were looking at each other, our eyes fixated on one another. I’d never forget him. If there were that peculiar string that attached one soul to another, I firmly believed it linked him and I. We were not alike in background, stature, or community. Still, there was so something so oddly kindred between us that I could not excuse it. Something that when I looked at him, I recognized him, as he did to me.

A black car pulls up and he turned to look at it. His expression went from comforted to concern immediately. His eyes softened as they returned to me. A man got out of the car and began to walk towards him.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a quiet pleading voice.

“What?” I was so confused at that moment, so lost as to what was about to happen.

As the man who got out of the car began to guide him back to it, the younger man thrashed and tried to return to me. Fighting to break free of the grasping current that would separate us and leave one without the other. A matching set to be split apart by unfortunate circumstances. I ran towards him as he was set in the car.

“Please keep talking to me, don’t leave!” He cried. For a brief moment, the man who loomed over me seemed like a little boy. A scared child who had no clue what to do. I was clasping his hand and circling my thumb around the back of his palm. My chest was heavy and I couldn’t bear to see him leave. I knew this would maim me.

“I’ll try-” I piped out gently as he is taken from me. I stood there watching the car drive off. I was lost in the shroud of what had just happened. I was once again independent and alone, able to survive by myself, but now with a longing in me that had been absent before. One that reflects his ghost.

[...]

My concept of time has changed, myself before him and myself after him. Had it been days or months since I had last seen him? Who would I be if I ever saw him again, and would he ever want to see me?

The picturesque town is empty. It seems that all the stores are shut down and the world around is barren as the snow falls to the ground. I’m left to my own devices as usual. I may as well be an apparition to this town along with the old Carver building I stare at behind the cast iron gate. The brick and roman columns give way to a building that was once bright and warm in my younger years before him. I was never so golden though, inside of me was a tundra that had been so affected by him after those conceiving days of my character.

The large bars loom over me and prevent me from entering the accustomed world of my piety and chasteness. The untouchable ice of my soul had now been melted and I could now feel the pain. The spirited and distant eyes I had were faded and dull in this season of change. I was a being meant for serenity and reserve but had now been exposed to a boundless passion that was in my side like a thorn.

Reader, a day does not go by where I don’t feel the cavern of his absence. He is seen in my writing, broken table legs, and fading initials. These small reminders float to the surface in our season of early summer and subtly reemerge to me in the loneliness of winter. In the cold, I can still feel him bumping into my shoulder, or lightly flitting with a jacket or article of my clothing.

I am not an incomplete person. Before he came I was an independent being, free of the tyranny of my own feelings, and I still am. I am not ruled by the desire to exist with a companion at all times, and my own thoughts and solitude I often find comforting. He left me with the scar of desire, not a need, but a want. My desire to be alone makes this burning all the more potent and chilling. Knowing that he had true weight, and true importance in my life breaks me. The affection I felt is all the more real since it is not given in spades. I cared for him even when it was not expressed, I mourn him though I may never see him again.

I stare at the empty building as the snow falls on my face. I wish I could tell you there is hope, but only providence will tell me in time. My God-given nature is to exist in solitude. I am my own companion quite often, but I still miss the external one I once had. 

Dear Reader, everything is changing. My self-denying nature is at war with the passion I feel to find him. I am moving forward with the seasons, but with all the willingness of a slaughtered ox. I am steady as a ship with all the awareness of the changing tides. Still, I wish for calm seas and sunlight to pierce me.