Story written while listening to songs from "Very Early Joan"
The tears I shed for you were the ones I shed with you. I'll share this with you too, that we were together in spirit and soul as siblings as much as lovers for there were times we were closer than friends but did not consummate that closeness.
The storm carried us away until we were lost, tossed upon the seas, swept up in the waves. Another time I walked in the snow until it was so thick upon the world that I could not distinguish a single landmark or find my way home. I always preferred being lost to knowing every step of the way instinctively.
The water is wide, I cannot get over. Not yet, not without our boat we bought together and row it in harmony until we reach the other side. That oak tree we carved our full names on as children when we played at being engaged for the first time and optimistically double-barrelled our names at 7 and 9 still stands as a testament to the falseness of childhood fantasies of romance.
Sorrow follows me everywhere I choose to wander, dogs my trudging footsteps everywhere I'm forced to flee in the direction of. The sand records my slowing steps for the briefest time as I walk towards the sea. The waves threaten to erase my most recent progress long before they can wash away my old traces that they can use to follow me easily. It is a constant race against the water.
If I can turn back and jump on a train now, I could be somewhere new by nightfall. Somewhere old perhaps. I have not been home in nearly half a decade now, not really home in any sense that I intend to stay there. I can outrun the sunset if I can only catch up to the chugging train.
When I sent our children away, I told you and myself that it was all for their own good. They must learn to fend for themselves. It wasn't even for themselves, not when you really think on it. They got their food and beds and education handed to them. They had it far better than we had ever hoped to. We weren't to know what would happen out there. We weren't to know what would happen over here either. I've called to them at nights countless times. They grow impatient with me. Their voices tell me to hush. They tell me to let them be.
When their apparitions visit me, I am shocked by their filthy faces, clear in the candlelight. They tell me I am imagining it. They are completely clean, they tell me. The rain that pours relentlessly through the hole in the ceiling washes it all away as we stand there. We are all new now. Even you and me.
The children's visits are proof of that. They don't even cry these days.
The storm carried us away until we were lost, tossed upon the seas, swept up in the waves. Another time I walked in the snow until it was so thick upon the world that I could not distinguish a single landmark or find my way home. I always preferred being lost to knowing every step of the way instinctively.
The water is wide, I cannot get over. Not yet, not without our boat we bought together and row it in harmony until we reach the other side. That oak tree we carved our full names on as children when we played at being engaged for the first time and optimistically double-barrelled our names at 7 and 9 still stands as a testament to the falseness of childhood fantasies of romance.
Sorrow follows me everywhere I choose to wander, dogs my trudging footsteps everywhere I'm forced to flee in the direction of. The sand records my slowing steps for the briefest time as I walk towards the sea. The waves threaten to erase my most recent progress long before they can wash away my old traces that they can use to follow me easily. It is a constant race against the water.
If I can turn back and jump on a train now, I could be somewhere new by nightfall. Somewhere old perhaps. I have not been home in nearly half a decade now, not really home in any sense that I intend to stay there. I can outrun the sunset if I can only catch up to the chugging train.
When I sent our children away, I told you and myself that it was all for their own good. They must learn to fend for themselves. It wasn't even for themselves, not when you really think on it. They got their food and beds and education handed to them. They had it far better than we had ever hoped to. We weren't to know what would happen out there. We weren't to know what would happen over here either. I've called to them at nights countless times. They grow impatient with me. Their voices tell me to hush. They tell me to let them be.
When their apparitions visit me, I am shocked by their filthy faces, clear in the candlelight. They tell me I am imagining it. They are completely clean, they tell me. The rain that pours relentlessly through the hole in the ceiling washes it all away as we stand there. We are all new now. Even you and me.
The children's visits are proof of that. They don't even cry these days.