You love her.

You’d give your life for hers. You’d warm her through the night when she’s cold. You’d protect her from demons, both hers and your own. You’d kiss her through your tears, embrace her through hers, and seek the softest spots for her to land. There’s nothing you would not do for this woman.

 Sometimes, that is not the way things are. Sometimes, you can only let her go.

This type of love is not, however, about you. It’s about her. So even though you can’t do these things for her, you always know you would. Though you wrestle with your sadness, you marvel in her joy. Your heart will always bleed her name, even when she’s not around to see it.

There are few of us who get to feel such a thing. We get to take our steps feeling her everywhere. We study our reflection in the still waters looking for hers as well. We walk within the forest sounds, wishing her voice was there beside us. We lay in bed at night, wish the chill we feel was replaced by her warmth, that the space around us was filled with her essence. We feel her, and we succumb to our own mortality and humanity, with tears we give away to the emptiness. The gods are cruel sometimes, but we can always feel fortunate to have loved her this way, even if it pains us so. The hollowness we feel is like an expensive drum, it’s music bittersweet.

One day, perhaps in this lifetime or some other, I may meet this soul again, her feet planted firmly on our soil, ready. I will kiss her deeply as conviction and devotion pours from my soul, and I will carry her through the threshold she’s been waiting for, knowing what it was like to wait for her, her knowing what it was like to be waited for. Perhaps…even a godless man’s prayers can be answered.

Perhaps not. Perhaps I will walk this life without her footprints next to mine. Perhaps my life hasn’t prepared me for her arrival, but rather prepared me for her absence. This, only time can reconcile, only destiny can bear.

We shall see.