It was found on his doorstep, untouched by the weather...
I was alone and lifeless on the inside, my soul shattered and torn, scattered on the winds to the ends of the earth and I thought that I would never again reclaim it as my own. I thought myself to be beyond hope, beyond happiness, beyond... love. It was then that I realized perhaps turning my back on the gods was not so wise, that perhaps, in their own twisted way, they were still helping me along the treacherous path that so many call life. I knelt then, in the open field, the grass beneath me cold and riddled with dew in the early morning mists. I knelt and I prayed. Though I prayed long and hard, it was without much conviction, and so perhaps I was praying for all the wrong reasons, which makes the act itself morph into something sick and unholy. A sin if you will.
But that did not stop me.
I did not ask for their forgiveness, I have never in my long life honestly asked for forgiveness from anyone, and I do not ever plan on doing so. Nor did I ask for their protection or favor, their favor was beyond me and their protection only comes to those who earn it, and I was not going to become their lapdog. I bow before no one, perhaps that is what put me in this place in the very beginning.
I asked the gods to send me a companion, a Guardian Angel of sorts, if you will; someone to help take away the pain... if only a small amount for a short period of time. I have lived with pain and loss all my life, and I have dealt with it accordingly. In a sense, I feed off the pain and suffering in this wretched world, it heals my inner sickness and lays salve across my spiritual wounds in soft caresses. But only for a pitifully short amount of time. I used to accept this; I used to believe that this was my punishment for all the suffering I myself had caused in my past life. All the innocent lives I had taken, all the worlds I had destroyed, it all comes full circle in the end, does it not? And perhaps I did deserve that fate, but as the years fell through my parted fingers like the grains of sand in an hour glass, I began to have doubts. What if I could change this by simply asking them? What if, when I scoffed and refused their guidance I also condemned myself to this life of loneliness and misery? I had had, in all truth, enough. I had lost my husband, my daughter, my home; there was nothing left for me to lose. And so I prayed, and though I have never been a humble being, I knelt before them in honest humility.
Someone to take the pain away, no matter how short a time, this is what I asked of them. The only request I asked of them.
And they sent you back to me...
I had thought that you were gone, beyond my reach, for all eternity. A part of the life that I had left behind, you were to become like all the other things from a time long since past. Like a forgotten piece of furniture, covered in dust, shoved carelessly into the corner of an attic, I accepted the fact that some things and some people I would never again lay my eyes upon, never feel their touch, hear their voice. This is life, is it not? It is, and I accepted it.
But you came back to me, perhaps as deep down I always knew we would find each other again. And now that I have found you again, or perhaps you have found me, it is so hard for me to let you go. Don’t you see this? If I let you go, you would take my heart with you, and I perhaps would die without you. I belong to you now and you alone, every part of me is yours.
You are such a beautiful being, despite the hardship you have faced and the scorn that you have endured. We are the same, so alike, we have both been through so much, and we have both prevailed. Through it all we have kept going, we have never given up, even in our darkest hour we never said no, and perhaps that is what, in the end, drew us together once more. You do not know it, but you are such a perfect thing, shining with your own light and blessing all you pass with your grace, your compassion, your life. What am I to you? A hideous, hateful creature that hides in the shadows, loath to be a part of the world, perhaps even fearful of what those in it might see. I am so unworthy of a single glance, a smile; so unworthy of your love. Why did you answer my prayers? Why did you come? You’re so white and pure, no matter what you may think. Are you really an Angel as I see you?
Why? I don’t understand, why did you stay here with me? I had nothing to give you... what could someone like me possibly have to offer someone like you? It’s so absurd, I can’t possibly fathom... but you stayed. I didn’t understand, perhaps I never will, I only wish you could have stayed here with me. Why couldn’t it have just stayed the same? Why does everything change?
How could you have cared for someone like me? Do you still care? Did you ever really care at all, or was I just a pawn to you? Did you just use me and toss me aside like some torn and soiled piece of cloth? Sometimes I feel what you’re feeling, I can’t help it, but I feel it and still I don’t understand... you did care, perhaps no longer, but once... you did. How could you have ever cared for such a wretched outcast? The rarest and yet accursed of all of us?
Perhaps I was a fool to allow you back into my life, what was left of it. Perhaps it would have turned out better for the both of us if I had denied you. We would not have had to face our inner demons as strongly as we did, we would not have had to confront the emotions we still felt for one another, even after all the years apart. Yes, perhaps it would have been better if neither one of us stopped when we saw each other after so long, perhaps we should have simply turned the other way and continued walking. I suppose in the end it matters not, nor do I care, what happened, happened, there is no changing the past.
But I will always welcome you, should you ever choose to return to me. No matter what happened or what was said, who hurt who first, I will be here for you and greet you with open arms, should you ever come back permanently. I will be here for you in one way or another, this I swear. My soul is yours, though perhaps it’s dull and lifeless when set beside your own. I will give it to you, and you can do with it whatever you wish, I will not protest. Keep it, use it, crush it to glittering, diamond dust and watch as the winds carry them out of your hands and into the sky, towards the distant horizon like wayward shards of a once whole and splendid crystal. I will not say a word, just in the end; I wish that you had never left...
I don’t want to be alone again, not after being here with you and knowing what it means to truly be happy, to live the way one was meant to live. After spending countless lifetimes in the cold darkness, lifetimes of pain and loss, I have finally found something worth living for, and you have taken it away from me, if you left me, and I do not know what will become of me now. Surely as horrid as the ages have been for me, what lies in the path ahead, if I truly must face it without you by my side, will have no meaning to me; give me no peace of mind or soul.
But, perhaps I am being too dramatic. After all, if a child is without a father that does not mean it must be without a mother. I have responsibilities now that outweigh my heartache and torment, and though at one time I may have disregarded this, I will not do such a thing now. A life is a precious thing to waste, is it not? I will not allow my misery to fall upon the child, even when it is grown, it will not be burdened with everything that has happened between us.
Though I am only half without you, our child will never be alone.
I mentioned earlier that I ask no one for forgiveness in honesty, and I still hold to that claim. Nor am I asking you to repent, I feel it would be a pointless gesture, perhaps one brought on by guilt of things said and done, not because we are truly sorry, but only because we wish to alleviate this horrible feeling we carry deep within ourselves. Doing a good deed for all the wrong reasons is still wrong, and though in the past I would never give this a second thought, I have changed. We all have, and perhaps that is why we parted as we did, why we may never again have kind words to exchange. Why we may never even be graced with a brief glance of the other.
I accept and understand this, as I always have, and as I always will. Acceptance and understanding are perhaps two things that will always be a part of my nature, and I hope that I have passed them on to the child as well, for it will need them as it walks this stained and corrupt world. Though I fear that I have also passed other, less pleasing things onto it as well; hatred, bloodlust, vengeance, resentfulness. As much as I wish it were not so, these things will also be a part of the child’s life, as I cannot help what I have instilled into its being, just as you cannot help what you have instilled.
My resentfulness is a part of me that I wish I could cut out and watch, bleeding and writhing, die in the palm of my hand and leave me without its burden. Perhaps a part of me will always hate you for what happened that night, what you did to me, but a part of me also realizes that you were not entirely to blame. Perhaps these scars I bear are a reminder of what we lost that night, not a reminder of what we did to each other...
As I draw this letter closer to its end, a realization has dawned on me, more like a light switch being flicked on than a fuzzy radio station slowly becoming clearer. I have never expressed my feelings for you, or you me, and had things stayed the way they were, I don’t believe I ever would have. Words are pointless, are they not? In this instance, I believe they are, no matter what others may say of their views. So much can be said with a look, a smile, a single caress. Where words fail, other things thrive, perhaps more important things. Words are bitter in their creation, made to twist meanings and falsify actions, but the soul cannot lie. The eyes always see beyond the façade. Even I have, over the centuries, spun webs of deceit more often than I have spoken the truth. I have never lied about my feelings for you, but nor have I ever spoken them. Perhaps I was wary of saying them again, as I have said them only once or twice before in my life, and it never turned out the way I had dreamt it. But now that it is over, we are no longer one, I feel compelled to tell you, even if you had already known by my gaze, my caress, my soul...
I love you...
Perhaps I did not tell you this sooner because I was afraid that it would change things, as words of that magnitude always seem to change things, and not always for the better. I see nothing significant in them, as words are just that, letters thrown together that spill from your mouth like a disease, but most people hold those three in high reverence, and I would not ever use them if I did not feel truly and wholly devoted to someone. The words themselves are meaningless, it is the truth and the passion put behind them that makes them strong.
I am not asking you to reciprocate this, as perhaps once you may have done, I feel I am beyond caring how you feel now, as I have come to accept the hand fate has dealt me, no matter how much I wish the cards would be reshuffled. But, perhaps for closure and piece of mind (as much peace as one’s mind can attain from this) for us, I feel I should say them to you, as I have nothing left to lose, perhaps finally hearing the words on my own lips will help to cement it in my own mind of how all things come full circle in the end. Ashes to ashes, is that how the saying goes? From the hard, rocky soil a beautiful rose shall grow and blossom, but in the end it shall wither and die, rotting and melting back into the ragged, dry earth it had sprung from.
I truly never thought I would feel this way again, but I now know the feeling was there all along, I just never noticed it. Or denied its existence. I know now that I have always loved you, from the first moment I laid my eyes upon you in the Shadow Realm to the day I draw my last breath, your eyes, your face, your touch; those things will be the only things I dream of in the cold, dark nights that will fill my life from this moment on.
I suppose it would do no good now to tell you that what I said that night was untrue; the past cannot be undone, and perhaps if it happened all over again I would take the same course I took then, for better or worse. But I want there to be no lies between us in the end, all my walls have been stripped away by you and I don’t think I would be able to bare this last piece of fallacy, especially as the last important phrase uttered that led to our parting. I did not lay with seaborn, nor have I ever thought of doing so; my rage and pain that night were more than I could handle, and you gave me the perfect weapon to stab you with when you insinuated such.
I have not taken on a lover since I was with you, and you may very well be the last, as my desire to lay with someone has been absent since you left. Bewildering, is it not? Such a whoring wretch as myself finding the one act that dominated my life for so long unpleasing and perhaps even nauseating without you. All the better I suppose, as my attentions will now be focused on the child I will be bringing into this world.
I have no right to ask this of you, or perhaps I have every right, I don’t know which is wrong, but perhaps my request is wrong in itself. Whatever the case may be, I ask you to stay away. I am not asking you this out of spite, or to try and punish you for anything you have done or said. I don’t believe, even now, I could bring myself to harming you, were I in my right mind. I am asking you this for my sake, and the sake of the child, our child. I could not bear to see you here, in my life, and not be with you. To see you for a short time and then watch you walk away again would be more than I could take. The child does not need to be brought into such a world either; a father absent most of the time is perhaps worse than no father at all, and I hope you understand this and why I am asking this of you. With time, the child may seek you out on his or her own, and I will not try to dissuade them from doing so, but until then, please... if you intend on coming back for only a brief glance, do not come back at all.
I will end this letter on that note, however heart wrenching it may or may not be, as it seems as good of a place as any to stop the senseless flow of my thoughts to my pen and ultimately, to these sheets of paper. I had not realized that my letter would be this long or come to be so hard to write, and I hope that it makes more sense than my twisted and broken emotions do at this moment.
At the end of it all, my dearest, I simply ask for you to think of me from time to time, whether it be less than I think of you I care not, just do not forget me and all that we once meant to each other. Many words were passed between us in the years we have known each other, some compassionate, some not, perhaps the latter holds the majority. My last request is that, even if you do not fulfill it, please, at least remember your promise to me...
Rhiannon
"And then, I turned around and smiled at you.
Have I ever told you that you were the only one who could make me smile?
It was only after you had gone that I realized my smile had always been a sad one.
Somehow, I could only hurt you.
Somehow, you could only hurt me.
So we decided to never see each other again.
And if that hurt us both maybe that's proof of something called love."?
But that did not stop me.
I did not ask for their forgiveness, I have never in my long life honestly asked for forgiveness from anyone, and I do not ever plan on doing so. Nor did I ask for their protection or favor, their favor was beyond me and their protection only comes to those who earn it, and I was not going to become their lapdog. I bow before no one, perhaps that is what put me in this place in the very beginning.
I asked the gods to send me a companion, a Guardian Angel of sorts, if you will; someone to help take away the pain... if only a small amount for a short period of time. I have lived with pain and loss all my life, and I have dealt with it accordingly. In a sense, I feed off the pain and suffering in this wretched world, it heals my inner sickness and lays salve across my spiritual wounds in soft caresses. But only for a pitifully short amount of time. I used to accept this; I used to believe that this was my punishment for all the suffering I myself had caused in my past life. All the innocent lives I had taken, all the worlds I had destroyed, it all comes full circle in the end, does it not? And perhaps I did deserve that fate, but as the years fell through my parted fingers like the grains of sand in an hour glass, I began to have doubts. What if I could change this by simply asking them? What if, when I scoffed and refused their guidance I also condemned myself to this life of loneliness and misery? I had had, in all truth, enough. I had lost my husband, my daughter, my home; there was nothing left for me to lose. And so I prayed, and though I have never been a humble being, I knelt before them in honest humility.
Someone to take the pain away, no matter how short a time, this is what I asked of them. The only request I asked of them.
And they sent you back to me...
I had thought that you were gone, beyond my reach, for all eternity. A part of the life that I had left behind, you were to become like all the other things from a time long since past. Like a forgotten piece of furniture, covered in dust, shoved carelessly into the corner of an attic, I accepted the fact that some things and some people I would never again lay my eyes upon, never feel their touch, hear their voice. This is life, is it not? It is, and I accepted it.
But you came back to me, perhaps as deep down I always knew we would find each other again. And now that I have found you again, or perhaps you have found me, it is so hard for me to let you go. Don’t you see this? If I let you go, you would take my heart with you, and I perhaps would die without you. I belong to you now and you alone, every part of me is yours.
You are such a beautiful being, despite the hardship you have faced and the scorn that you have endured. We are the same, so alike, we have both been through so much, and we have both prevailed. Through it all we have kept going, we have never given up, even in our darkest hour we never said no, and perhaps that is what, in the end, drew us together once more. You do not know it, but you are such a perfect thing, shining with your own light and blessing all you pass with your grace, your compassion, your life. What am I to you? A hideous, hateful creature that hides in the shadows, loath to be a part of the world, perhaps even fearful of what those in it might see. I am so unworthy of a single glance, a smile; so unworthy of your love. Why did you answer my prayers? Why did you come? You’re so white and pure, no matter what you may think. Are you really an Angel as I see you?
Why? I don’t understand, why did you stay here with me? I had nothing to give you... what could someone like me possibly have to offer someone like you? It’s so absurd, I can’t possibly fathom... but you stayed. I didn’t understand, perhaps I never will, I only wish you could have stayed here with me. Why couldn’t it have just stayed the same? Why does everything change?
How could you have cared for someone like me? Do you still care? Did you ever really care at all, or was I just a pawn to you? Did you just use me and toss me aside like some torn and soiled piece of cloth? Sometimes I feel what you’re feeling, I can’t help it, but I feel it and still I don’t understand... you did care, perhaps no longer, but once... you did. How could you have ever cared for such a wretched outcast? The rarest and yet accursed of all of us?
Perhaps I was a fool to allow you back into my life, what was left of it. Perhaps it would have turned out better for the both of us if I had denied you. We would not have had to face our inner demons as strongly as we did, we would not have had to confront the emotions we still felt for one another, even after all the years apart. Yes, perhaps it would have been better if neither one of us stopped when we saw each other after so long, perhaps we should have simply turned the other way and continued walking. I suppose in the end it matters not, nor do I care, what happened, happened, there is no changing the past.
But I will always welcome you, should you ever choose to return to me. No matter what happened or what was said, who hurt who first, I will be here for you and greet you with open arms, should you ever come back permanently. I will be here for you in one way or another, this I swear. My soul is yours, though perhaps it’s dull and lifeless when set beside your own. I will give it to you, and you can do with it whatever you wish, I will not protest. Keep it, use it, crush it to glittering, diamond dust and watch as the winds carry them out of your hands and into the sky, towards the distant horizon like wayward shards of a once whole and splendid crystal. I will not say a word, just in the end; I wish that you had never left...
I don’t want to be alone again, not after being here with you and knowing what it means to truly be happy, to live the way one was meant to live. After spending countless lifetimes in the cold darkness, lifetimes of pain and loss, I have finally found something worth living for, and you have taken it away from me, if you left me, and I do not know what will become of me now. Surely as horrid as the ages have been for me, what lies in the path ahead, if I truly must face it without you by my side, will have no meaning to me; give me no peace of mind or soul.
But, perhaps I am being too dramatic. After all, if a child is without a father that does not mean it must be without a mother. I have responsibilities now that outweigh my heartache and torment, and though at one time I may have disregarded this, I will not do such a thing now. A life is a precious thing to waste, is it not? I will not allow my misery to fall upon the child, even when it is grown, it will not be burdened with everything that has happened between us.
Though I am only half without you, our child will never be alone.
I mentioned earlier that I ask no one for forgiveness in honesty, and I still hold to that claim. Nor am I asking you to repent, I feel it would be a pointless gesture, perhaps one brought on by guilt of things said and done, not because we are truly sorry, but only because we wish to alleviate this horrible feeling we carry deep within ourselves. Doing a good deed for all the wrong reasons is still wrong, and though in the past I would never give this a second thought, I have changed. We all have, and perhaps that is why we parted as we did, why we may never again have kind words to exchange. Why we may never even be graced with a brief glance of the other.
I accept and understand this, as I always have, and as I always will. Acceptance and understanding are perhaps two things that will always be a part of my nature, and I hope that I have passed them on to the child as well, for it will need them as it walks this stained and corrupt world. Though I fear that I have also passed other, less pleasing things onto it as well; hatred, bloodlust, vengeance, resentfulness. As much as I wish it were not so, these things will also be a part of the child’s life, as I cannot help what I have instilled into its being, just as you cannot help what you have instilled.
My resentfulness is a part of me that I wish I could cut out and watch, bleeding and writhing, die in the palm of my hand and leave me without its burden. Perhaps a part of me will always hate you for what happened that night, what you did to me, but a part of me also realizes that you were not entirely to blame. Perhaps these scars I bear are a reminder of what we lost that night, not a reminder of what we did to each other...
As I draw this letter closer to its end, a realization has dawned on me, more like a light switch being flicked on than a fuzzy radio station slowly becoming clearer. I have never expressed my feelings for you, or you me, and had things stayed the way they were, I don’t believe I ever would have. Words are pointless, are they not? In this instance, I believe they are, no matter what others may say of their views. So much can be said with a look, a smile, a single caress. Where words fail, other things thrive, perhaps more important things. Words are bitter in their creation, made to twist meanings and falsify actions, but the soul cannot lie. The eyes always see beyond the façade. Even I have, over the centuries, spun webs of deceit more often than I have spoken the truth. I have never lied about my feelings for you, but nor have I ever spoken them. Perhaps I was wary of saying them again, as I have said them only once or twice before in my life, and it never turned out the way I had dreamt it. But now that it is over, we are no longer one, I feel compelled to tell you, even if you had already known by my gaze, my caress, my soul...
I love you...
Perhaps I did not tell you this sooner because I was afraid that it would change things, as words of that magnitude always seem to change things, and not always for the better. I see nothing significant in them, as words are just that, letters thrown together that spill from your mouth like a disease, but most people hold those three in high reverence, and I would not ever use them if I did not feel truly and wholly devoted to someone. The words themselves are meaningless, it is the truth and the passion put behind them that makes them strong.
I am not asking you to reciprocate this, as perhaps once you may have done, I feel I am beyond caring how you feel now, as I have come to accept the hand fate has dealt me, no matter how much I wish the cards would be reshuffled. But, perhaps for closure and piece of mind (as much peace as one’s mind can attain from this) for us, I feel I should say them to you, as I have nothing left to lose, perhaps finally hearing the words on my own lips will help to cement it in my own mind of how all things come full circle in the end. Ashes to ashes, is that how the saying goes? From the hard, rocky soil a beautiful rose shall grow and blossom, but in the end it shall wither and die, rotting and melting back into the ragged, dry earth it had sprung from.
I truly never thought I would feel this way again, but I now know the feeling was there all along, I just never noticed it. Or denied its existence. I know now that I have always loved you, from the first moment I laid my eyes upon you in the Shadow Realm to the day I draw my last breath, your eyes, your face, your touch; those things will be the only things I dream of in the cold, dark nights that will fill my life from this moment on.
I suppose it would do no good now to tell you that what I said that night was untrue; the past cannot be undone, and perhaps if it happened all over again I would take the same course I took then, for better or worse. But I want there to be no lies between us in the end, all my walls have been stripped away by you and I don’t think I would be able to bare this last piece of fallacy, especially as the last important phrase uttered that led to our parting. I did not lay with seaborn, nor have I ever thought of doing so; my rage and pain that night were more than I could handle, and you gave me the perfect weapon to stab you with when you insinuated such.
I have not taken on a lover since I was with you, and you may very well be the last, as my desire to lay with someone has been absent since you left. Bewildering, is it not? Such a whoring wretch as myself finding the one act that dominated my life for so long unpleasing and perhaps even nauseating without you. All the better I suppose, as my attentions will now be focused on the child I will be bringing into this world.
I have no right to ask this of you, or perhaps I have every right, I don’t know which is wrong, but perhaps my request is wrong in itself. Whatever the case may be, I ask you to stay away. I am not asking you this out of spite, or to try and punish you for anything you have done or said. I don’t believe, even now, I could bring myself to harming you, were I in my right mind. I am asking you this for my sake, and the sake of the child, our child. I could not bear to see you here, in my life, and not be with you. To see you for a short time and then watch you walk away again would be more than I could take. The child does not need to be brought into such a world either; a father absent most of the time is perhaps worse than no father at all, and I hope you understand this and why I am asking this of you. With time, the child may seek you out on his or her own, and I will not try to dissuade them from doing so, but until then, please... if you intend on coming back for only a brief glance, do not come back at all.
I will end this letter on that note, however heart wrenching it may or may not be, as it seems as good of a place as any to stop the senseless flow of my thoughts to my pen and ultimately, to these sheets of paper. I had not realized that my letter would be this long or come to be so hard to write, and I hope that it makes more sense than my twisted and broken emotions do at this moment.
At the end of it all, my dearest, I simply ask for you to think of me from time to time, whether it be less than I think of you I care not, just do not forget me and all that we once meant to each other. Many words were passed between us in the years we have known each other, some compassionate, some not, perhaps the latter holds the majority. My last request is that, even if you do not fulfill it, please, at least remember your promise to me...
Rhiannon
"And then, I turned around and smiled at you.
Have I ever told you that you were the only one who could make me smile?
It was only after you had gone that I realized my smile had always been a sad one.
Somehow, I could only hurt you.
Somehow, you could only hurt me.
So we decided to never see each other again.
And if that hurt us both maybe that's proof of something called love."?
This wasn't written by me. =_= -Sigh...-
I doubt the RP would be suitable to post, anyway. ~~;
