LONGING

I know your voice, but I have never known the weight of your hand. I know the silence between your words, but not what it would feel like to sit beside you in that silence. An ocean lies between us— too deep for my footsteps, too vast for my arms, and yet somehow far too small for everything I feel for you. I could whisper your name a thousand times, and the wind might carry it across the water, but never far enough to reach you. And somewhere between our worlds, they are waiting. The demons. They don't always have horns. They don't always come from the darkness. Sometimes they wear the face of distance. Sometimes they are called fate. Sometimes they are simply all the reasons two souls can find each other and still never find their way home. I don't hate the ocean because it stands between us. I hate it because it knows how close you feel while my hands can never reach you. At night, I imagine that somewhere on the other side, you are looking at the same water. That somewhere beneath those waves, a part of you is calling for me and a part of me is answering. But the ocean remains silent. Always. And perhaps that is our cruelest truth: We found each other, but never found the road to one another. When I close my eyes, you are only one breath away. When I open them, there is that damned horizon again. And I wonder how much longing a soul can carry before it finally breaks. Maybe I will never hold you. Maybe I will never know what your presence truly feels like. Maybe we will forever remain two lights on opposite sides of the world, bound by something even the ocean cannot drown. Then let the demons come. Let them stand between us. Let them guard the sea. Let them give us a thousand reasons why this can never be. There is one thing they can never take from us: Somewhere in this world, there is a heart that knows your name and misses you as though it has been waiting for you for an entire lifetime.

1 Nauk