Eclectic Shit & Other Fuckery

And I ran.

Ran from the pain.

Ran from the guilt.

Ran from her.

Ran from everything.

Ran until I reached that little nook by the side of that little river where we always used to go when we wanted to be alone.

I sat there, water dripping from my eyes, watching water fall from the sky and disappearing into other water before rushing away, swirling itself down the path it had made towards yet more water.

I imagined my tears joining the rest. Flowing away like everything else.

She couldn’t be gone. It wasn’t possible. I could still hear her voice, still see her face, we’d only just seen each other hours before. We were supposed to have dinner tonight. They were lying.

I shouldn’t have let her go. I should have been with her. We should have been together. This was all my fault. She couldn’t be gone.

I thought back to that day not that long ago when we promised forever. I tried on this dress at the mall and she just stared at me, speechless, until she finally blurted it out: Marry me. Like she was kidding. But she wasn’t.

Turns out forever wasn’t that long.

Someone found me. Probably the only other person who could. They sat with me, watching all the drops of water and their paths down the hill.

“Y’know, life is kinda like this.”

I sniffed and half-wiped my face. “What do you mean?”

“We all begin somewhere else, somewhere no one quite understands. Everyone watches – or no one does – as we grow, closer to appearing on earth. Then we join the crowd, follow our paths. Some just go with the flow and others carve their own ways. Some are part of something small and others part of something much, much bigger. But in the end, we all disappear to somewhere else no one quite understands.”

I looked at them. Just thinking about what they’d said.

“Everyone’s going to tell you she’s in a better place. And that might be nice for some. But for others that means nothing. Because we really don’t know. We don’t know where they are or whether they even truly exist in any way we can comprehend. What we do know is that wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, whether they’re even anywhere or doing anything at all – what we can say, truthfully, is that they’ve moved on to their next adventure. And, really, that’s how we want to remember them, isn’t it?”

I sighed and leaned my head on their shoulder. “Thank you,” I managed before my sobs choked me again.

They put their arm around me and we sat there, watching the water flow. From my eyes, from the sky, from the ground, from the river. I sat there, thinking about her, about what they had just said, about what she would say if she were here right now.

“Okay.” I heaved a deep breath and pushed it back out. “I think I’m ready.”

– written 28 Feb 2023