Illustration by Allison Chung
| i. something keeps pulling me back to this well of grief. i could sit here for hours, maybe, staring at the reflections, drawing up memories to drink – tepid and stale, but tasting just enough of golden hours and shadowed laughter that i can't stop coming back for more and more and more. i almost fall in but i don't. how did i even get here? a thousand paths, sleepwalking, exhaustion and envy and loneliness regret and silence and fear. all it takes is an image or a word and i'm back, running off the path, wandering through the ruins of the kingdom i built him in my head, collapsing at this well to drink. wrong kingdom. wrong well. i know it, but the pain is so familiar that it feels like home. please, i just want to be home. is this home? this desperation? scooping up what i can, raising it to my chapped lips, so eager. so certain that this time, this time it will quench my terrible terrible thirst. this time i will find relief. but i don't. there are only the tears on my face and the tears in my heart and my soul falls in, and i'm lying there, weeping at the well again. | ii. that's where you find me. somehow (i never know how) you find me, and you sit down beside me. and i'm scrubbing hard at my eyes to stop the tears, but they keep coming, and you take my hands in yours so gently. those scarred hands. and i sob out, stop. don't you see? don't you know who i am? don't you know how many times i've run from you? look at me, i'm a mess. why do you keep coming back? leave me alone. i'm not worth it, this is my exile. and you look at me. and i feel it, feel it as you see me. i feel it as you take in all that i am, all that i so hopelessly am not. i feel it as you know me, down to the depths of my bones, feel it as you gather up the pieces of my heart. i feel it, as you pick me up – no, please, i'm too heavy, but when i meet your eyes the strength and compassion there silence me completely – i feel it as you carry me in your arms like a filthy ragged child, as you carry me down to the river. somehow i'm not afraid. and as you walk into the waves, the whole of me screams out i think this is what i was made for. | iii. at first the water's so cold that it steals the air from my lungs, seizes all my muscles, but your grip never falters for a moment. you speak for the first time, your voice just at whisper, rest, child. and if the stars obey that voice, so must i, so i do. i let go, let my breath out, let my limbs relax, and all at once the relief pours through me like nothing i've ever known. there is nothing but the coolness of the water on my lips on my skin cleansing me refreshing me these streams of mercy never ceasing i feel it as they make me new. once i was lost but now i'm surrounded, over my head in this deep and boundless love. again, you speak. do you see? do you know who i am? do you know how many times i've run after you? look at me. look at my hands, my feet. i love you, and i'll never stop coming back. my dearest one, you are never alone. i am your home. |
