When The Ocean Waves Called Out To Me

"I Loved You" And Your Ghost

After that day, that one incident, everything in my life changed. The tears from that day are always there, still hidden behind my smiling eyes, and the yearning. There are days, when I want to see him so much, that I think he is a passing stranger until my mind reminds me of the possibilities of what this reality can and can't do.

There are days when I am filled with chaos and noise, trying to keep his ghost at bay. Yet there are days I call to it, fearful to lose him all over again. Every time my heart cries out, he comes and my emotions whirl faster than a child's spinning top. Trying to feel him but only see an empty room, to reach out and only feel the cold air, it shatters my heart all over again.

But in those quiet moments, when he comes to me, ghost-like, a shadow of who he was, I try to stay calm and keep the specter kind. He laughs and I recall the times I felt like he loved me. But after all these years, why am I still expecting more? Why do you still haunt me? I want to forget everything, but apparently that isn't my lot in life.

In the space that should be filled with your love, at my foundations, keeping my soul aloft, there is a void so black no light can penetrate. It is a wound that can never heal no matter how much salve is poured on. I tried escaping from it, as I wanted to keep living, for my sake and also for Kaoru, but I guess I was wrong. I changed schools, cut all ties with the friends who knew me before, those who would remind me of the past, of Kaoru's death.

But even after all that, I could still feel his ghost, as if Kaoru is still here. I could still feel like being succumbed by that void, though never able to shine a light to make that darkness submissive.

"It's just Karma, right?."

"Yuki, I'm still here for you."

"He isn't here for me anymore."

"Look at me, believe in me, and we will be reunited."

"We can never be together again, never."

"Don't you love me anymore, Yuki?"

"Still, I wonder..."

"Don't you love me anymore?"

The slight step of my tired shoes rounding the corner was enough to release the breath I didn't even know I was holding for so long. With the sigh like a lost spring breeze, my shoulders relaxed, and my face lit up to the sky that has brought a hue of granite-gray faded with a blue-tinted white valley, along with a calmness and tranquility to nature.

"I shouldn't forget..." I brought my attention back to the road, as the smell of wet-earth wafted to my nose, "I have a promise to keep, head straight back home."

I clenched my teeth and fists, lowering my gaze down to my feet.

"I guess Kaoru couldn't keep his promise with his mom that day, because of me."

In that moment, a flash of guilt inflicted a pain in me, and were I to relive it, I would have to try and summon more strength, which I failed to do so.

And all at once the air became like water and I'm drowning in this sea of indifference, desperate to swim up beyond cloudy skies to the stars above.

The sun came out again, casting slanted beams of light, bringing an ethereal beauty to the scenery below. Unlike the ephemeral and mysterious beauty of today's morning, everything was honeyed tones, beautiful and soothing, as it conjured the most brilliant of mosaics, reflecting from each leaf and wisp of cloud. By the side and small cracks on the walkway, the green plants and grasses had a silvery sheen, shining in those stray rays of sun, as the dew brings a brightness that is warming somehow.