One Last Walk on the Beach

The wind, salty and cool, rushed past me, stinging my face and singing to me its ancient song – but not a lullaby, more like a symphony. I heard it and it was compelling. I reached out to you but you had gone and I looked up in the mist and saw you walking far in front of me. The sand made it hard to walk for it was wet and giving — like walking on a thin layer of quicksand, it was hard to move forward very quickly and I found myself panicking as you disappeared into the mist which, now, had become more than a dense fog; it became a wispy beat with claws cold and without a heart. It swallowed you up in its bowels – still I walked on trying to find you in the gloom.

I saw traces of your footprints partially washed away by the relentless surf. The wind was bitter and soulless – harsh and needy in its desire to control and wound as if it derived pleasure from my panic and pain.

I hurried along the shore as quickly as the conditions would allow, but somehow I knew that once you had disappeared into the crevices of fog and mist, I would never see or hear from you again. I realized you had been disappearing for quite some time before you actually did.

It’s hard to measure loss – there is no scale, or instrument like a thermometer or a hospital pain charge for this kind of pain – just no way to measure it. I’m quite aware there is no panacea, no nepenthe, no opiate or potion that can heal this pain of loss. The emptiness, the void, cannot be filled with song or drink or the company of one or many. It is always there, always gnawing, always eating away the inside of me. Sometimes I feel the pain will explode through my skin in bloody eruptive pustules, disfiguring, debilitating, painful and incurable. You couldn’t have hurt me more if you had impaled me on a stake, and let me bleed out stuck in the middle of some hot, scorpion-infested desert – far from you, far from comfort, far from peace, and far from the quaintness of feeling oblivious and numb.

Yes, I did feel you slipping away into the mist, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it — I couldn’t let myself believe it — I would have died a premature death; rather than accepting that the fog was closing in and you would choose to lose yourself in it and hide from me forever, I chose the petals of the flowers you tossed me — little tidbits – little bits of your time, little bits of your laughter, little reminders of how you used to feel, how you used to be, how we used to be when the sun shone down on us — new friends together against the world.

I am not a fool. I knew you were going long before you went. I should have prepared myself for it — and in a way, I guess I did. For most of my life I’ve steeled and sealed myself against the pain of losing someone who I loved and trusted. I guess I never really gave much of myself to anything really, I was too afraid the connection would suck me down into the black, swirling vortex when someone died or someone chose to walk away — as you have.

You’re out there somewhere — in the salty fog – I can hear your voice on the wind. I, the lost soul on this beach of despair cannot utter a single sound — save for the whimper of a man who cries almost silently, trying in vain to hide his tears from the world.

Knowing you’re out there something is both a blessing and a curse. I’m blessed I had the time with you and that we shared it well. I’m cursed because I’ll never catch up to you or ever find you again. And so I walk alone of a gloomy beach, the sand sinking beneath my frozen feet, the icy waves washing away the memories of you though I always try so hard to remember.

It’s odd that I tried to remember you when things were new and good. It only makes my gut ache worse; it only eats away at whatever is left of me. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

But you’re out there somewhere, but I can’t follow you anymore. I’m tired and weary and my heart is ruined. I lie down on the cold wet sand and wait for the serpentine aqua waves to wash over me and carry me out to the place where ache disappears and the pain and sorrow turns into the peaceful blackness of eternal night.

I wave goodbye. I don’t know if you see me waving or not — I can’t see you; I can only sense you’re watching. Don’t pity me. Go on with your life and find happiness. You will you know. Forget me, for soon I will find the peace for which I have craved so long.

My sorrow will end so your happiness can begin. You’ve let go of me, but don’t ever let go of your dreams. Tomorrow will dawn a brighter day for you and you won’t have to run from me any longer.

In the end, we all have the same destination — some of us decide to take a shortcut. A few hundred years from now it won’t matter anyway.

Goodbye, sweet sadness,

goodbye.