Debris on the seashore.

When is it too late to tell someone that you love them?

My love only ever found its shape through loss; i bid every love farewell in the hope it might gather and plead for a corner of my soul in time.

I learned early that debris on the seashore, once cast away never return.

My soul forever parted into quarters and categorized for all that it was worth, my hatred of the ocean forever adamant. It would never repay its debts for what it had taken, for the lack of what it later restored. The gentle recoil of waves something reminiscent of myself, an incessant back and forth, never stagnant, nor foregone. I believe i lived fruitfully in that motion, without the desire to gain stable footing on solid ground, boundless, my love bereft of the buoyancy required to touch the shore.

Though, all that i love still loiters between that narrow gap, where the sea and the sand carefully collide, a meeting of lovers too discarded i imagine. But what would i know of rekindling, of fate, and red strings, unknowing of stars that magically cross in constellations. Perhaps a piece of me fractured too lingers within that hallow, still petitioning the notion of “fate” to anoint me with more.

But i have long wrung my kismet dry.

Or had it wrung itself? left to soak and hang in pouring rain, misfortune tainting the ink in which the foundation was sketched. One that chained me to only momentary contentment. I could measure my life in those fleeting moments now, the ones that cluster together to form the briefest of eternities.

Even within an eternity is there ever enough time to show someone that you truly love them? I cradle no regret to honor all that I have sacrificed, but if time had been gentler would a piece of me still live on in somebody’s heart?

I can only recall love through the lens of yielding, yet my tea still brews each and every morning, undoubtedly. I still sip it too hot and scald my tongue. And as I count the trashing tide, from my half opened window ledge. I remember another seabed, another April, the day my life truly bloomed into spring.

"What's your name?" I asked, "it's Selene." she replied. I wanted to know more, where to rest my tongue as I pronounce each syllable, how her friends beckon her from the porch, the sound of Selene when spoken with familiarity. She didnt seem to know herself, as fickle as the way the wind changes its course. I could never capture her essence completely, not without unravelling my own ribbon. Even now I shelter the shard of her she left with me, I loved it until I could pronounce every letter of her name as though I had chosen it specifically for her.

Back then I simply desired a piece of her vastness to pocket, perhaps it would accompany me along the trail home. I’d never have the fortitude to take it myself, but the sun was still finding its resting place, the unspoken guarantee of first light.

Ever-changing.

And so i held onto it whilst it lasted, though, i knew the end neared.

I cradled the flame physically, my fingers curled into the dirt, dragging half moons through soil with a touch still undeniably tender. until the first time she looked at me, really looked. Her eyes were simple, the perfect shade of autumn pine, they hadn’t yet learned how to hide the things she felt. So, i felt it for her, the fleeting sweetness of spring seeping into the rise and fall of my chest, like my heartbeat had synchronized with sky and everything i knew I’d never reach beyond it, unless i disregarded everything i had ever known.

The sincerity in those brown eyes enveloped me, turning my flesh translucent with candor. and suddenly it was gone, the empty guttural feeling dissolved and she set my shallow heart aflame.

if i could freeze that look on paper.

I felt like i would be safe forever.

Safety wouldn’t keep me afloat, her appraisal inclined with the tide. She parted the ground surrounding her sprawled legs, sifting through grains of sand that found residence in the curves of her palm. Before her pursed lips parted to speak. “I know you have to leave.” The words struck me with a quiet force, neither confrontational nor timid, just plain and true. My mouth ran dry, though, for a second the world had narrowed to the space between our interlocked gaze, to the weight of unspoken understanding and the strange, pilant gravity that wielded us together, despite the declaration of parting.

I rested my cheek against the point of my knees, draped in chiffon, positioned as an easel would face the sun.

"Once i’m gone, i’ll never return.”

The willowing girl tasted my words, raising a brow as the light danced around her blunt edges delicatey, the shadow of the tallest lighthouse reflecting onto her face as she pondered. I couldn’t help but roll the seam of my skirt between my calloused fingers, as i scanned her, from the tips of her rain-kissed shoes to the top of her unruly hair, stuck up in tufts as though it had forgotten which way to grow.

It was then that she slipped into the shape of a stranger once more.

In many ways, the girl with eyes of Autumnity and a heart of blown sugar was the first to bear witness to my own ever-changing. If i had known that i would look for her in every little thing that i loved now. I would’ve sat in the dirt with her for just awhile longer.

I never asked her to follow me, i didn’t ask anyone to follow me.

They never desired more than normality.

They looked out toward the lighthouse, its beam sweeping the abyss like a quiet sentinel. As though they could only venture as far as its light had uncovered. They must have been happy there, that’s my conclusion now, grown enough to bare the absence of home, to miss my mother’s hands in my sea soaked hair.

I understood contentment, finally far trodden enough to face what i had taken for granted; merely returning to a lived in home after nightfall. I was always guilty, forever pining for more as though it was my god given right, i turned my nose down on those who didn’t.

Familiarity was never enough to shackle me, id never let it hold me for too long. But now i see, it held me warm whilst it did, like a mother's womb, soon overdue. I knew i needed to leave, before i grew ridges along my forehead and met each dawn harvesting grain for less than i was worth, my dreams milled into soil, impossible to differentiate from everyone else’s. I’d nurture, then flourish in something far more enriching.

Self discovery.

And departing was not something one did twice.

I never once looked back, perhaps the naive ideals that tea brews the same, no matter the place. Although, my tea had always been lukewarm or so i recalled. Maybe it was hot once, when it had been first poured with gentle hands around the neck of the kettle, and maybe i neglected the vision of the warm steam running over the brim of my chipped mug back then. Finding my comfort in those overgrown fields on days like these, where the sun couldn’t quite find its resting place in the sky. I had long left those fields behind, i still greeted them everytime i blinked.

The image of eternal spring scorched into my retina.

Nothing could quite beat the bitter aftertaste of loss, by my own hands.

Somethings never change, just some things.

I’d never be eighteen again, watching as the dusks amber hue cascaded in spirals over the schools yard, Selene’s silver walkman whizzing between our laced limbs, music barely a whisper in the wind. I’d tug at each budding flower i saw, the ones with an ocean of colours vivid enough to paint, unrooting them from their soil and replanting them, safety between the pages of my journal, my attempt at preserving the last grace of springtide.

I had soon closed those pages, leaving my final spring one chapter of many. “What if” dwindled in every crevice of those memories, which too, grew lukewarm with the passage of time. Yet they were once undying and evergreen. Before i made art of my life in chalk, greying out the edges.

My heavy heart has never carried the burden of regret, to honour all that i left in the dirt.

Selene.

My ocean of ignorance has recoiled into a vaster body, hesitant to come or go, but once the first light lifts, and spring falls upon us again.

Will it be too late to tell you i love you then?