On moonlit nights like these,
I think of you,
and a veil is lifted
between your world
and mine.
But the reflection of you
always disappears --
like a stone into water,
like a ghost in the night,
like the smoke of each dragĀ
that I take
in memory
of you.
Rest now darling,
in peace amongst
the stars.
Two years. Itād been two years since he first moved to this shadowed cabin by the lazy, murmuring river that locals called the Stream of Consciousness. All day and night, he could hear the whispers of this body of water, waking him at sunrise and lulling him to sleep come nightfall. Eventually, he couldnāt imagine life without the sound of it - this looming, endless song that seemed to wash away every troubled thought that entered his mind.
In fact, thatās why heād moved here in the first place: to escape the noise that crowded his brain after the break-up. He and Aimee had been together since college - eight years of peaceful bliss, until one fateful day in December when it all finally ripped at the seams. He never imagined heād one day live alone, but thatās what it had come to. And so it remained: just him, the trees, and of course, the stream.
He had always been a methodical man. As soon as the sun came up, heād rise. Take a shower, brush his teeth, eat a breakfast of slightly burnt toast and two lightly salted eggs. Every other day, he would go for an hour-long stroll through the forest, moving slowly and silently as he looked up at the trees and watched their leaves being shaken by the wind. He made his living as a freelance writer, and money was never an issue, nor was time.
So he kept busy. With writing, gardening, and going out to the stream to pluck smooth, small stones from the shore, which he kept perched around his front porch in straight, perfectly placed lines. He kept busy because too much headspace would mean an outpouring of Aimee - thoughts of her voice, or her hands, or the way her eyes glistened like a rippling pool of water the last time they said goodbye.
Itād been two whole years since they ended things but somehow, the door to Aimee had never closed. Since heād moved here, heād only contacted her once. One drunken night in November, the first snowfall of the season. One glass of wine too many had launched him into a blue haze of text messages: I miss you. Iām sorry. I hope youāre happy. But his lonely screams only echoed through the forest, unheard and unanswered. After that, he deleted her phone number and vowed to never reach out to her again.
Memories of their break-up hung around him like a fog, but he still couldnāt fully explain why it disintegrated the way it did. Visions of their last few months together came to him slowly over time. And each time a fragment resurfaced, the entire picture became more refined and clear, like the rough stones in the stream that were gradually polished by the tide.
Iām sorry, Iām sorry, Iām sorry. Why were these the only words that could come to him now? He certainly didnāt feel sorry when they ended things. The day Aimee left their apartment, he wanted to spit. On her. On the boxes, weighed down with the last of her things. On the photo of them, smiling, that hung above his desk.
A few months before that, sheād come to him with tears in her eyes. āIām pregnant.ā
He sat in silence for a few moments, until he could muster a deep breath and murmur, āItās going to be okay.ā
What he really wanted to say was, āIām not ready.ā
And every evening, when night cast its shadow over the bed that he and Aimee shared, he found himself wanting to go back in time - to a time before they had ever met. But despite his secret longings, time only moved forward. And as the weeks passed, Aimeeās stomach tightened and grew, the new home of an unexpected life.
āI think I want to keep it,ā she murmured one night as they drifted off to sleep.
So for months, they prepared. Carved out a corner in their tiny studio apartment. A crib, a changing table, a small stack of childrenās books from the Goodwill next door. As it all came together, the manās heart even fluttered a little. Maybe this was what he was meant to be: a father. And though he didnāt feel ready yet, he wondered if anyone could ever feel ready for that kind of thing.
Three months passed since Aimee first bestowed the news upon him, and he saw a deep glow growing within her, enlivening her with the promise of life. He even heard her humming in the shower every night, soft melodies she made up as she thought of names for their soon-to-be child.
It was four AM on a Friday when he felt something shake him violently out of sleep. āIām bleeding,ā a hoarse voice croaked into the darkness. He jumped up and rushed Aimee to the hospital, sleep still crusted in his eyes. As he drove, the sun and moon both remained visible from the highway, hanging low on either end of the purple and orange-streaked sky.
He gazed at Aimee as she sat on the hospital table. The glow of life was gone, and her face was as pale as the four walls that surrounded them. The doctor came in, his eyes turned toward the shiny linoleum floor.
And thatās when the fog began.
The man did everything he could to keep that wicked name out of his head. But still, his mind wandered, to Aimee and her expanding stomach - the stomach that eventually shrank back down but was never again the same. Then he thought of his own stomach, how it sank into a pool of both sadness and relief when he and Aimee first saw the blood, speckled like tiny stars across the white linen sheets.
But why? Why was he so terrified to begin with? Why did the thought of that child, who was not yet even the size of his fist, make him want to shut his eyes and shrink into himself until all the world had disappeared?
He was frightened because he knew that when that life began, his as he knew it would end. And from then on, he would forever be responsible, for what he had brought into existence and could never, ever undo.
When Aimee lost the baby, he wondered if the angels were simply answering the silent, guilty prayers heād been sending every night to the skies.
But if this was what I wanted, why does it hurt so damn much?
Another day, another breakfast, another stroll beneath the trees
Another row of stones, each one polished to perfection by the tide
Listen to the water and forget she ever existed
A sanctuary for the lonely, never to be discovered
And still, her name, it haunts me
Where you can forget the unforgettable, unsee what has been seen
Can you lose something that you never had? Grieve something that never was? Ā
Last night, I had a vision
and still, my life continues
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā while another is kept a standstill
We were sitting by a stream, and leaves were falling all around us like grey hairs from the trees
white noise
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā ends untied
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā unraveling,
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā unraveling
I was staring at the water, mourning everything that we had lost
I just want to stop remembering
And you were beside me, wordless and understanding
But the water remembers,
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā it always remembers.
I slip into a dream in the hopes of finding you there. And you are, just as you always are: fast asleep with your hair moving like a wave across the pillow. Here, an impenetrable peace surrounds us. Itās the split second of calm you feel when you first wake up - when you have no concept of yesterday, today, or tomorrow; when all you know is the square of white ceiling above you, a virgin canvas unfettered by the pain of color or shape.
I want to live forever in that space. That sweet, vacant heaven.
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