CHAPTER 3: THE WATER BEARER

Take me down to the river bend.

I want to take a look at my reflection in the water and see if you’re still in it. Maybe the current will create waves high enough for me to meet you there. I see them in my dreams at night when I close my eyes and you’re there in front of me. A silhouette like a water colour painting, your colours perfectly indulged in each other.

My mind fights the feeling of sadness, because I know you’ll be leaving me again. But this time, I won’t be here for when you return. I won’t be here to see your colours merge into one or the lines that form in your face when you tell a lie or to hear you say you’d be there when I know you won’t be.

I’m not coming back to get lost in your ocean anymore.

This paradise you have created around me is fake, it’s no wonder I double take at every smile made around me because yours was never sincere.

This time I will take myself down to the river bend. I will wash myself with the intentions of a new beginning. I will run my eyes dry and let my tears carry you somewhere far away from me. At least then I’ll only be left with a picture of you in the distance, turning you into only a fragment of my memory. I now hold myself when I cry. I now hold space for my darkness in ways that you never did. I will sit on the coast and forget us in the sunrise.

As the sun comes up, I’ll sigh in relief remembering that today is a new day,
And again, I will find myself at the river bend.