Chapter 19
A Memory That Exists in My Broken Heart
I will never love another.
I have already seen the world without you.
I have already drowned in the days that stretched too long,
Swallowed nights that tasted of regret. I drank oceans to forget you,
But every tide still carried your name.
I will never love another.
Not after I have felt the shape of your soul,
Not after I have traced the map of your body,
Not after I have known what it is to be whole.
For I have lived without you,
And it was not life—it was the shadow of a breath,
The echo of a heart that once beat.
If the streams of water take you away,
If I wake to a world where your voice is only a memory,
If the sunrise spills gold over an empty bed,
If the ocean roars and you do not hear it—
Then let it swallow me whole.
Let the waves pull me under,
Let the current take me where you are.
I don’t want to be old and gray without you.
I don’t want to be a ghost wandering through years
That were never meant to be lived alone.
I don’t want to breathe air
That does not belong to the same sky you stand beneath.
I don’t want to walk this world
Where you are nothing more than an absence.
I will never love another.
The time we had was a borrowed dream,
A fragile thing made of salt and sky,
Of whispered laughter between waves,
Of hands pressed together in the dark,
Of love too deep to speak aloud.
I ran from you once.
I was afraid of the fire we built,
Afraid of the weight of loving you.
But I burned in your absence.
I turned to ash in the silence.
I was a man unmade.
And now, if the tide pulls you away from me—
If you go where I cannot follow,
If your breath stills before mine,
If the light in your eyes fades into nothing,
If your smile is nothing but a memory,
Then I will never set foot in the water again.
I will never cross the tide,
Never chase the horizon,
Never let the wind carry me forward.
Because my heart is no longer mine to give,
And the ocean is no longer my home.
Without you, I belong nowhere.
Without you, I am nothing.
Without you, my breathing is worthless.
Without you, my heart forgets its rhythm and stills.
I will never love another.