Non-Aqueous Seas

My darling is a passenger on the non-aqueous sea, though most seas these days are filled with blood, and not water. It's harder to sail through blood, it's contents so much thicker, that the captains raise the prices - through the channelized streams only the rich can afford to go now.

Now, only stakeholders in the world, like my darling man, can afford to be passengers, off seeing the broken world we have watched crumble at our feet, smiles on our faces as the tongues lick up to dry our tears.

Have you ever watched a plastic bottle burn in a campfire? Have you ever seen it crumble? It licks its sides with tongues of heat, demanding more than the bottle can take. Yet, the little bottle never burns the second it jumps in. For a brief moment it survives the heat. It takes a minute as it begins to melt, not realizing it's fate is doomed. The wrapper rolls off, shriveling before the rest and dropping to the coals below. Slowly it curves in on itself, going into the fetal position . And then the bottle goes up in smoke.

My darling when he comes home from his trips, always holds a look in his eye of the bottle before it realizes that it is about to burn. And I feel powerless to stop the fire that I know is coming for him. After all, we all know that men fall in a similar way to the bottle. I think it's important though, to remember – the fire too, will die. Death is the only constant in this world. Just ask the non-aqueous sea, full of the blood of men who thought they were eternal gods.

And now the world stands waiting like the bottle, already in the flames, waiting to be licked up and killed, and there is nothing I can do but watch them join the red seas.

Pain is just below the surface of everything, but I learned a trick with pain a long time ago. If I think of how to describe it, it hurts less. I focus in, my words the ointment, and it runs from description. I learned a trick with pain, but this pain is different this time. This pain doesn’t run from my language, it snuggles into it like a blanket, and makes me wonder, how can it be love if all I get is pain and you feel nothing at all?

That isn’t love anymore.

It's self-abuse.

I mourn for the world, the way it once was, before the rivers became non-aqueous. I mourn for my darling, the way that he was, before he became a stakeholder, working for the people who let this all happen. I mourn for the people who will never see their loved ones again, because the ticket across the water costs too much, and no one can afford it. I need to forget the way the world once was, I need to stop mourning, or at least that's what my darling keeps telling me - because it's not coming back.

He's not coming back.

Every time he comes home, I look at him, waiting. I'm expecting the person I once knew, the one I once loved. But he's gone. He sold his soul to make it across the non-aqueous seas, and left me behind to sit on the shores and wait to become the liquid he goes over.

I need to release my expectations of what he should be, or my own hopes will destroy me. Hate, anger, greed, jealousy; these are the feelings we are told to release. We're never told to release our love, even when it's what is killing us. We're told to fight for love, but at some point, we must realize that like the clear water, it won't come back.

Love is a curse we never want to let go, because we always think it will come back. But it won't. This time, the world will end before love returns, and the love I long for is in the flames, not yet realizing it is about to shrivel up and burn away forever.

My love for the past is a rock around my ankles. Perhaps that's why as I waited for my darling, I went out and found a real rock. It's large and heavy, slippery in my hands as I tied the rope around it, connecting it to me as I sat there in the row boat, my eyes searching the horizon for you. But you're too slow. So I throw the rock overboard, and I follow it down, dancing in the red as I search for the love I've lost.

And I am kicking toward the surface, but it's no use how hard I swim. Your statue is still holding onto my heart and I have to cut you loose so I can find air, so I can find land, so I can find an acceptance that doesn’t drag me under the tide.

I release you.

I free me.

I realize it’s not you, I even want anymore. It's not the way things used to be that I so desperately want back. I want the fantasy of my world that I have constructed in my mind because that world is perfect and that world isn’t real. That world never existed. We started marching to the fire long before I ever was even born. It's just the world I want, and the world that I have to cut loose, and watch sink into the deeps as I come back to the surface, clutching the side of the row boat, and gasping in the warm summer air.

My darling is a passenger on the non-aqueous sea, and today I nearly became the liquid he goes over. I nearly became the true love of his life.