the occasional musings of a minecraft salmon19 // she/her
31 posts
i think that when i saw something pleasing in the cut of your cheekbone and the cruel uptick of your lips, that i wanted something to call mine
and i knew you looked like someone who would hurt me but the all the tv shows in the world taught me that danger is exciting, and all the warnings in the world couldn’t stop me from getting in too deep
even though i never really lost anything, it sometimes feels like i lose everything, again and again
and i want to find that happiness, the sparkle of an eye and the softening of creases, i want
someone to make plans with, i want to be so in love that it’s disgusting, and all the tv shows in the world convinced me that to get to the happy ending, you were supposed to find love on the way
but i’ve kissed a couple guys, and none of them stayed, and as they fragment my trust and my perception of loyalty,
i’ve more frequently stayed my hand, and perhaps a part of me looked at the patterns and recognized that something easy might not be in the cards
and that i was maybe unloveable or simply incapable of loving in any way recognizable by someone with the capacity to love me back
so i try to decline the danger to protect my heart from getting hurt, but its a self fulfilling prophecy, that when you don’t show your hand youre on the defensive
and it’s a perverse self-torture, but i imagine you reading these and knowing me, an exchange of understanding that doesn’t have to involve spoken words
so often buffered by meaninglessness and impulse
but there’s hurdle upon hurdle of expectation on reality and movement slow and fast, and besides, love isn’t real anymore but simply fighting, in a game that was never supposed to have sides
and once we draw, we reshuffle and try again
i want you to make me pretty
unmake who i was beneath your hands
take all my soft parts and sharpen me
press me to you to find no curved edge
i want you to push down where it hurts
i want you to yield me a secret
you can’t break something already broken
i already know you'll never keep it
don’t ask to know me,
go on, make me anew
see me where no one has seen
i can pretend i was what you drew
look in the places that matter the least,
lick the tears from my cheeks and bite down
strip me to skin to skin, but
there will always be space, no matter how thin
i want you to taste me
take a day or two to wash the scent
miss me when i’m gone; won’t you?
convince me not to pretend
it isn’t kind, is it? to yourself, nor i
making mirrors and posing and refracting light
you can try, but we’ll never see eye to eye
even when silk drape isn’t on your mind
smoke and mirrors, painful prayer, nothing to see
you will never make a beggar of me
see me
strip me with your eyes
my witness to my life
break me
recreate me in your image
phyletic mental fission
taste me
twisted essence on your tongue
claw-foot decanter drunk
i want you to want me like a fine wine
a taste you cant get out of your mind
i wish you’d drink me down
and tell me that you’re mine
ruby splatter on a white shirt
the way your fingers make a clean cut
chanel on the collar that brushes my hip
a pornographic shine to your lips
press them to me
let me devour you
twin souls entangle to one
let me bury myself under your skin
stretch to make room for the fit
a flush to your cheeks
wandering eyes across the room meet
take a slow sip, go on, let me see
the things you’d do to me
if i were a fine wine
spilled carelessly on the bed
red bleeding like ink hair from my head
wrist pinned to the sheets
would i gasp,
would you plead,
we’d make a pretty picture, indeed
pastel sunrise, mottled green
flower bloom, thawed stream
spring is upon us, the air is clean
crisp cloud cuts the sky
and there’s a gleam in your eye
an adventure there, and i want to follow
outstretched hand, t-shirts at dusk
grassy knoll, abandoned park
mosquitos buzz and bat them away
air cool and perfumed with the breeze of the day
and there’s a bed waiting when you get home
and the silence is warm when you’re alone
sky open above you and dizzy with fear
the grip of nostalgia never felt so real
until now, grass flat beneath your back
and sand between toes, pretty rock in backpack
teetering on the precipice of all you have known
at once still so young, at once so near grown
living felt stagnant but the answer was clear
every me nested in me, stacked years upon years
the coming of spring still awakens such thrill
and the promise of budding spreads dreams anew:
this was never a middle, as the pond is never still
but the beginning of everything, and everything that will
i would look at a text
thumbnail skitter over message, scroll,
and think that this must be how real people talk
i looked for the answers to the universe in the
scuff of nail polish on my desk, or
scried my future in the blue tint of
lucky charms milk,
but there was no supernatural to be found in the ordinary,
no simple magic to the daily
and i woke up before the sun rose, but even then i
couldn’t find anything to be happy about
or any beauty in the darkened world,
until the gray light crept over the sky, illuminating the ugliness
the bus stop smells, and
fetid streets, and
the ants on the counter, crawling over their dead friends’ bodies,
among the pesticidal waste
and i wonder if someone wished me out of existence,
or if maybe, it stuck, when you told me i couldn’t be real
maybe i need practice with heartbreak
maybe if i hold on i'll learn to let go
maybe good things were never destined for me
maybe futures aren't written in stone
i hate when things change
i want everyone to stay
people in my mind are unpredictable
and rarely comply to the rules of real life
it feels like a sort of self-harm,
to throw myself into it again
this cannot be good for me
every instinct tells me to protect,
every experience tells me to listen to my qualms
withdraw, reel back, just stop, deflect
my hope is incessant and endless,
don't talk to me if you don't want a fright
my spark of interest cannot be drowned
when i wake up and remember myself,
it will be you on my mind
until i create a caricature in my head
until i forget your face,
your actions wrought by shadowed features
memories in feeling, if not in sight
a day stretched into a year of groundhog memory
don’t hurt me, i want to tell everyone that talks to me
don't make me care for you when you won't care for me,
it will only make me hate you
and it only takes one night and one day
for nothing to be the same again
entropy must increase,
disorder in your brain
impossible to untangle in music
can’t sense-make nonsense and expect to gain
there’s got to be another way,
there’s a pounding in your head
there’s a solution, thermodynamically
excise the pain, release the dread
but when you stop running
all you hear is your breath
the sear in your lungs
pounding in your chest
stripped away, immortalized
beastly, energized
your face hot against warm water
the body is all that remains, unclothed
a shock to the eye,
stripped of ego, stripped of pride
curve of waist meets slant of thigh
without facade, it’s who you are
truths tantalizing and terrified
feared to face, close your eyes
but its you, you cannot hide,
so open.
see on wide;
the messy marks of an existence cried
unfortunately, agonizingly alive
smeared grease stains on phone screen
and passed a joke from video to friend
statistically significant,
node on the web of connection
sticky fingers push cheek,
mold skin to who you are
physical barriers between us,
but our minds touch, less individual
more undefined,
more unknown
split between the bodies of friends
and everyone i ever met
self-description entailed self-destruction
and a greater whole emerged from the mess
ridiculously vulnerable
a populace in fetal form
the world, it was me and you
the individual a self-serving lie
all born with fragile skin that breaks
all born from the same blue sky
all born vulnerable
to the world, expecting attack from all sides
i ran, and it worked, because entropy increased
but my energy went to another cause
a difficult pill to swallow,
that things don’t disappear when they're gone
the world is a closed system,
and we are who you are
and i fear you
and i love you
and you are me, and i am you
and when i see something i recognize
in the reflection in your eye,
and when i run and try to hide,
we are the world, it’s all around
it’s within me.
i want to write poetry but there’s no words in my mouth
saliva foams to the surface and there’s no sink to spit it out
clogged with frustration and rage,
i tell you:
i stopped trusting myself a long time ago
the heart is not the guarantor of interest.
i go back, again and again
find solace in the cage,
my present moment unsatisfying, and yet
more concievable than a future where i changed
the heart beats and tells me to listen.
mortal hand, electric flow, i tell it no.
action potential, depolarization
numb limbs, itching skin, proof, here;
that my body mattered, in a way, in the end
when they pressed an ear to my chest
still warm with fading beat,
ready to rest,
it told them, whispered secret;
she tried to escape me, separate me, deflect
and when the soul goes unnourished, body suffers
the energy pervades, more spent on the physical
on mental toil, means none for the rest
when she hated herself, she knew it was wrong
but she couldn’t convince herself of the best
good was not worth it, and she sunk, and i beat
until she finished me, too, inevitably, like the rest
‘now bury me quietly’ it said happily, contract and release salted life
the heart was right, in the end, as it is
neglect mind, neglect body, neglect soul
i tried to love you, it was supposed to be you
but you were never the goal
it whispers to me,
it wants to know
it will not quiet
it can’t let go
beside my pillow,
loud beat of heart
it cannot stop,
it cannot start
curiousity disquiets the head
circulate, metabolism
energified, stomach dread
tap of toe, pick of finger
sensual slide of bared leg
i cannot settle, unscratched itch,
i will not ever be at rest
the days pass so quickly,
resolutions so fickle
and there is something old, very old, inside me
that spits on it all
the lecherous gluttony and
sick indulgence, stuffing soft, pink bellies
full to bursting
built into that, a stopping point
the shining stretch of flesh, hesitant,
untested, afraid to try
energy must exist in equal balance,
and the beast takes
yawning cavernous hunger,
a need never satiated, swallowing the world.
hurting, hunting,
it does not forget – it does not want to forget.
content in its loathing, superior in a void.
hating and hating.
but it forgets itself
fed by another hand, before it learned to take.
hurt by another's mouth, before it learned to snap
someone else's creation, it is not itself
it is residue,
it is fear
the days pass so quickly,
without reprieve, in delay
i walk alongside them,
and the beast always stays.
come winter, i am flimsy,
waxen paper on dry breeze
crumpled by the pressure, and
hardened by the cold
come winter, i can’t.
every breath hurts to breathe
frost forced down your lungs,
spider fingers in your veins, it
peels off your jacket
it ignores whimper of pain
biting your skin,
frozen heartbeat gone
come winter, it hurts
and you don’t want to fight
it is someone else,
naked, battered,
beaten, bruised
but it is you, knocking on that door
it is you, begging to be let in
ember dying in the cold,
frost-bitten fingertips and
stone cold pit to be thawed.
it is you, feathers sodden by rainfall
petrichor dirt freshly churned on your grave
and desperate plea,
and hope for something better
it is you, who shakes off the water
and emerges, drenched in warmth,
ready, now, yearning,
to be set alight
it is beautiful, quietly beautiful
it needs no announcement nor gaudy proclamation of arrival
gentle patter of snowfall,
whispered brush of leaf
it is there through blustering sunshine
it is there in deadened sleep
the silence is a thing in itself, the
backdrop of every play
you are never not without it
it's patient, it lies in wait
and when you are ready for it, though you may never be
going out a thing of rage,
riotous against the peace
they'll tie you to the bed
and you'll spit out useless fury
it will greet you, with open arms and heart
it begs you to forgive
but you're animal, not god
and love spawns hatred in your heart
when you're tired and heaving
back bent and wrists red,
the silence will creep
aimless night will descend
and if you've never lived without sound
the quiet is unfamiliar, in the end
it's just you and the trees, and they're scary, yes
but they are soft,
but they are friend
you’ve been forever a lack,
a hole, an absence
i cannot imagine you,
because i idolize you
i want, so desperately, for you to be
an absence yet constant presence
you lurk, a nagging feeling
an abcess, an itch
and yet i could not seek you out
because a part of me still thinks
we will crash on the street,
or touch hands at the bookstore,
we’ll smile shyly and pass,
gazes will linger
amid flashing lights or buzzing drone,
or elevator music, or raucous home
any way that would seem
like the stars drew our fate
but you can’t argue that from a swipe,
so it scares me, to find you that way
in the pit, the emptiness of my soul
when i should’ve been looking to the ones who fill,
to the excess, to the outpouring
to the ones i know.
you are quiet giggle
confession stuck as it leaves,
weaving through the crowded street
you are late nights texting,
and the last one to put the phone down,
and borrowed shoes for the night or the week,
and fingers gripping my back when we hug
you taught me ‘i love you’ when i leave the car,
and you taught me to face what i truly felt
you taught me it would turn out okay,
and you taught me when to fight back
love is a whole,
tangible and real
i’ll recognize you when i see you
when i know you, it will mean
i was not fixed,
didn’t find my other half
you were never the first,
you will not be the last
i walked a stranger's footsteps today,
there seemed a poem in that
i turned my feet to match his gait
slowed mine to his own crooked path
he walked with haste irregular
tempo change could not meet the eye
but i felt it, for a minute, we were one
on that path, in that space, he and i
he does not know, for a minute there
another walked his rhythym
his stride was longer, his steps were quicker
perhaps he sought to make haste
and sure, it was weird
he would have found it so, too
but for that minute i was him in delay
i understood his perception
and the give of his limbs
i knew of his body's affections
soon our steps fell into disfavor
before leaf underfoot gave way
we were entities once more, unique paths on the ground
before my door, i turned but he walked away
maybe i will see him again, on my mellow walk home
maybe our eyes will connect
i would not know him by feature nor face
but maybe i’d fall into step
and recognize a gait from a dream long ago
a temporal space once inhabited
it was you, i would think, i was you for a minute
and we’d pass by and walk on again
it's not you now, its something else
it's easier to love
a vesicle for influence,
torpid machine of thought
and its better this way, it doesn’t hurt
when someone hurts something you’re not
but when the colors blur,
it always comes to end
in the darkness of the bedroom,
in the darkness of your head
when you close your eyes to sleep
when there’s noone there to tell you
a part of you, the one thats you,
always, it will know:
the truth is the lump in your throat,
the truth is in dexterous hand
the truth is in a crooked smile,
pointing to the sand
they taught you to hate yourself,
but what you should hate is them
we were borne from the lake,
to the lake we meet our end
the mirror was not meant to be
neither silver nor black facade
something we weren’t meant to see,
wan face reflected back
it's your fingertips on petals,
it's your toes in the grass
it's your lungful of fresh air,
even if it is your last
you wish to fulfill potential,
you wish that you were tough
don’t weep nor mourn what cannot be
you always were enough
you wish to hide from your mind,
you wish to not be real
you hunger for experience
you crave their artifice
you yearn for something better than this
the curve of smiling lip
you let the colors consume you
if attention strays, it never dips
you want to look and not be seen
you want the mouth to open
you talk of vulnerability,
you hide behind a screen
you indulge in habits you hate,
you hate yourself by proxy
it holds no violence, but it festers
a sight you cant unsee
you wonder how you got here
you wonder how to flee
it draws you back, time again,
its a funny thing like that
habits form, but once they’re there
they’re awfully hard to crack
i love him the most in the gentleness of sleep,
he is at his softest then
eyes closing to the sounds of the world,
nose buried against my leg
claws retracted,
mouth soft and yielding
no twitch of the ear,
nor flicker of the eye,
vulnerability earned and cherished,
a kiss and gentle pet accepted,
i adore you most in the quiet of the night,
sparkling eyes slip shut,
soft belly bared to the world
breaths even and unmeasured,
curled up, awaiting
indefinitely, unknown
fall is a season for the lovers
transitory and fleeting,
never quite settling in one place or time
fall is never landing,
a leaf carried by the wind
pushed by forces outside you
to places you didn’t want to be, perhaps
but you find yourself there regardless.
fall is the gentle whisper of the breeze, transformed
to the violence of a hurricane
wind chapped skin, fingernails brittle, you fall.
clawing for something you’ll never have
praying for something you’ll never be
desperate to affix yourself to the branch
but you’re adrift now, and
there’s no going back.
fall is still falling,
after the storm ends
after everyone moves on and forgets,
fall is left behind.
memory trapped in a brittle, orange leaf
sliding to rest on the slope of a dying hill
“home at last,” it whispers, as it flakes away
“home at last”
i don’t like saying ‘i love you’ because my heart catches in my throat every time,
the truth can be written with greater ease:
i love you so much it hurts.
and i know you so well, all of you
yet your favorite color still surprises me
i cannot think of who you’d get along with, or what you’d like
because you’re mine, even if i know, i know it’s just a little part.
i think the beauty and fear of knowing someone comes from the vastness.
because you are an endless impossibility,
a miracle.
shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?
or a winter’s night?
or the first taste of spun sugar, melting on the tongue?
shall i compare thee to a sunrise, all dusky blues and cadmium hopes?
shall i compare thee to the calm before the storm,
the silence that descends at the first pluck of a string;
reverent?
you are more than all of it, of course, and maybe one day,
when it feels a little less raw,
when a brush against my skin doesn't send ice skittering through my lungs,
maybe in a week or two,
i can show this to you,
all rapt nervousness and unmet gaze
even in the surety of reciprocity.
and maybe i would say, ‘i’m sorry’,
and you would understand that if i felt it any less
then i swear i would tell you so.
i don’t tread on eggshells,
i treat them as such
but i don’t expect the same for my own.
there’s always that shell i’m holding back
but when i give it out, with a delicate hand and feigned lightness,
somehow it seems to return safe
i’ve always been one to beg forgiveness after,
my cowardice so endless i can’t crawl out
it’s almost easier when someone doesn’t have the right to care,
so i cant tell them anything raw and exposing
what a strange stuttered half-life existence i’ve sown
little kernels of truth kept inside me
i say that with some they can see all,
but i’m lying to everyone to an extent
they all get little eggshells to keep in their pockets
maybe if combined, the shape would emerge
maybe if combined, i’d be known.
it isn’t for naught, theres a part of me that wants it this way
even if it feels like a punishment
summer strings you out and stretches you
leaves you to dry like meat on a wire
frayed thin, tendons close to snapping
nothing but hot skin and buzzing flies
rough sheets and restless nights
summer is seamless and raw
leaves you prickly and itching all over
flushed cheeks and peeling skin,
tantalizing and torrefied
like something shaped for burning,
like something waiting to be set alight
nobody taught me what happiness was,
i had to teach myself.
i sought it in a golden fleece,
but it wasn’t found in riches
i sought it in the thunderbolt,
but it wasn’t found in god
i sought it in my mother’s hand,
but she never learned it either
i sought it in my own heart,
but the feeling wouldn’t linger.
nobody taught me what happiness was,
it’s simpler to stay sad
you have to save yourself, i realized
it’s easier said than done
when you’ve convinced yourself you don’t need saving,
that the bone-deep hurt is in everyone.
i made myself happy enough, i bluffed but i should’ve known
enough is never enough
my heart was never my home
i flayed myself at the altar
i bent backwards for pelias
his upward gaze did not falter,
a midas touch could not settle the rest.
there was no reason, none at all
but i could not accept it,
i think i've always been a little scared of happiness
for me, it was never destined.
nobody taught me what happiness was,
but i’m trying to learn it now
i’m sorry i hurt so easy
i’m sorry i didn’t treat you well
i’m sorry i stayed complacent, couldn’t face it, didn’t cherish what you gave me
i hope you can forgive this
i hope you trust me with your gift
i’d turn back for you, every single time
for one sun-dappled glimpse.
nobody taught me what happiness was,
i think i figured it out.
it's trying, with everything you have, to find it
you owe it to yourself.
to care for something is a delicate thing
to cultivate, to put a part of you into a vessel outside yourself with no guarantee of success
like chipping a piece of your heart that you might not get back
it's a gamble
but you take that risk because you always hope that what you feel, so may someone else for you
a singular attention
but people bite
and you don’t know if you’ll ever get it back
and what if you gave more than you realized
and when they’re gone, you look down and all that’s left is blackness
blindfolded in a ribcage, entombed by a heart that doesn't beat for you
by lungs that don’t breathe for you
by lips that don’t lust for you
and you are shunned and quiet and can only say, oh, okay
and give no sign of your smile chipping away, that skipped beat and the cold creep of dread
and give no sign of the disappointment, lest you look closer and know its because you had the audacity to have expectations
and give no sign of the hurt, lest you find yourself realizing it meant something
to be vulnerable is to be peeled open, raw and turbulent, strapped to a table with a knife hovering over you and a trembling hand against it
it's the pulse in your neck as something unknown grazes your skin
the flex of tendons desperate to recognize what’s beneath them,
the lump in your throat that never seems to go away
it’s the hope that the contact was lips and not teeth
and some say the risk is worth it for the chance of love
but this year it is a brittle winter
and the truth is so warm within me,
to the point where i may set ablaze
and nobody will know why my body was charred from the inside out
we are simply the universe interacting with itself, a tentative touch, a shared breath.
and we must be tender with each other, for we are fragile
and we are real,
and you are real.
and you know yourself best, so you should know best that you are deserving of joy and every delicate softness that you stop to rub your cheek against, to feel that conjoining of two forgiving things.
to know that you can love, wanton and gorgeous, sunlit smile touched by every person who has treated you with care,
and possibly treat someone else with care, too.
you can have everything you want, dear
you only have to know that you deserve it
you only have to forgive yourself
dread has no place in our ecosystem, in our tangled, finite hearts
we are the universe, of the same stardust sprinkled onto fertile soil
we are the universe, nursed and nurtured into our positions
we are the universe, laid gently to rest when we are done
we are the universe, and we can help make it a little more bearable before we take our final bow.
don’t go chasing the rest, darling, because you can care without reciprocation
you can simply love
and it is a vulnerability, yes, but not a weakness
it is not a weakness.
i remember that time when the sun danced on your face on the bus ride and you thought you looked beautiful
once, long ago, when your hair was soaked with water and happiness
your friends asleep on your shoulders on a bus, your throat hoarse from laughter
the light left as the planet tilted, but so slowly you didn't realize it was night until you couldn't see the sun
you used to press pen to the paper without hesitation
without an eye for your own failings
you would stand outside and inhale the fresh air and feel a lump in your throat.
i wish i was like you
that i could draw forever, and play forever, and sit on a bus and laugh
i wish i had cherished you while you lived
your golden days, to you, were brown
overlooked the happiness for the homework
i wish i could go back to that time, when i was you and we were one and our memories were events of the present
i wish that the days hadn’t moved like the tides, puppeteered by the swiftly tilting moon
but the times have turned and sand once dry has been dampened
i still see the stars
i’ll cherish each light until i'm left in the endless abyss
and i’ll realize that these were the good times too.
scent indicates familiarity; it’s always there but doesn’t really mean anything until it means something,
and now its not just brownies cooking, but ours over stifled giggles at two am
and now its not just a car exhaust, but yours singing songs into a sunset
and then, years later, you catch a whiff
and your head turns, inevitably, because it would be worse than shame, to miss something you love
and maybe a part of you wants you to be happy
and when you lose that forever maybe you’ll seek it in a bottle, or save it in fabric, or even try to rediscover it in the recesses of your mind,
but scent is uniquely reserved for the here and now,
and i will never live this moment again, but
maybe i will catch a whiff of it on the breeze
and my head will turn ever so slightly,
and i will remember oh, how i loved you so.
i hope you get your peace
i hope this lets you feel release
i hope the hurt was worth it
i hope the feeling raw
i hope it scalds when you remember me
and burns the skin right off your lying maw
Zela’s place was not here. Not in this restaurant, not with these people. The sooner she recognized that, the sooner she could get over it.
Wiping angry tears from her blotchy face, she rushed out into the cool night air, retreating to the safety of her car.
She slammed the steering wheel. Once. Twice. And then she crumpled.
Was it so bad to have company pride? To love what she did? Should she not adore her workplace and the people who worked there?
She fished out the rook, placing it gently on the dashboard. She still remembered it as if it were yesterday – Christmas, age twelve. The snow was falling hard outside, and Zela had woken up to a wonderland blizzard. The family had stayed inside, yelling in joy, chasing each other, wrapping paper strewn across the carpet. Her father had swung Malin around, who, of course, was jubilant. Zela watched, wanting to join, but Darren couldn’t hold two daughters at once. So her mother had pulled her from behind, shouting and grinning. She had brought down the chessboard from the shelf, and said with candy eyes and a nutmeg tongue, I think it’s time you learned the game.
Zela refused to stop until she won, but hours passed, and she couldn’t. After her fourth checkmate by the rook and a break for dinner, Zela snuck the piece off the board. Her mother pretended not to notice. Kita won anyway – but she never asked for the piece back.
Zela didn’t win that day. Nor could she the next, or the next week, or the next month.
Within the year, they were at a stalemate. After a year, Zela was consistently winning.
After two years, Zela started high school. According to her mother, there wasn’t time for chess anymore. There wasn’t time for family.
Her chest ached.
She still remembered the scent, the laughter. The warmth of four bodies in the same room. She still remembered the music.
Zela exhaled, half expecting to see her breath puff before her. But it was summer, and the snow hadn’t come in years.
i love you because you know me
even when i’m scared no one does,
when i think no one will.
you are my mirror, but in your eyes i might be more than pretty
but rather something beautiful
and maybe the terror isn’t a bad thing, but an anticipation, waiting
for someone to love me like you do,
patiently.
you know to have a gentle touch with my heart
you know where it hurts
i love when things remind me of you
that we’re past insecurity,
that we don’t skirt.
you make me want to be tangible, perceived
in the little things like this, maybe there's value in belief
maybe i can find myself, to be a home for you
if you know me it must mean i exist.
i love that you inspire me endlessly
i love that with you i don’t have to pretend
thank you for being here, always
it's a heart swell to know someone who cares.
we have grown up together but we continue to choose
and every time i know i made the right choice when it's you
their majesty was impossible to comprehend.
it was not a view that could be captured and bottled in a picture, reflected as it was in the eye of a camera. it was more -
vast and swelling even without an orchestral score. it was the impossibility, perhaps:
the stretch of the water, endless in its breadth, the patter of rain against lush grass, the vibrance of flowers unfurled against an overcast sky.
it was fog on the opposite coast, a river cutting through the hills.
it was all at once a tender kiss and a giddy laugh, ancient and ephemeral and undisturbed.
of course it inspired words - endless poetry, song, folklore, myth. for what was left when even pictures could not suffice?
you needed to live it, feel it, breathe it, and even then it was not enough, an endless waterfall with only a droplet slipped between wanting lips.
it was simply too much - for how could anyone begin to understand the edge of the world? It tasted of endings,
it tasted of beginnings.