she will never love me the same

The river loves her like a second daughter, like a middle child in between the silent streams peddling along crowded trails and the mouth that deposits affection into the elder bay. Gossamer clings to her shoulders and pools around wound up ankles with potential engery flowing through aquamarine veins, and she’s living. The man in the moon drapes love like a quilt across aching shoulders; if the river is her mother, he is her father with pride gracing her shadow and the stars shining in her wake. She’s living for the moments because if she ponders too hard about the mediocrities of waking up to start again, she will simply stop altogether, so she keeps living. She once read that some people found living preferable so that no family would have to bury their breathless body, but she has no one except the river and the moon to claim her.

And the kids at after care crown her queen of the train table and ruler of circle time around 4:52 or so. She knights the brave soldiers with spitfires on tastebuds leaping for attention and Oreos, whichever the teacher hands out for snack first. She teaches them about the ocean and nature, the way the trees sway and the waves play, lapping at young ankles like kittens. While they experiment with Earth, she wanders through briar bushes and finds everlasting beauty in the lilies surrounding her feet.

At night, the moon sends down Pegasus to be her companion. It is lonely, and she is sad, but living is all she has left. Sapphire melody carries aching bones to the indigo landscape. She leaves the city that doesn’t love her behind, for she will always have the water that envelopes her in crystal hope and the moon that recognizes sorrow like a lost love and chases it away with brilliant lights.

She finds me one crisp morning when the breath has just left the newly christened dewdrops. I swear to the heavens I love her and ponder how such a goddess came to be. She doesn’t love me. I understand that. But we will dip our toes in the pure water of the river, let the sun hear our affectionate words and drown out our sorrowful cries. I am hers, but she is not mine. She belongs to the open waters, the riverbank, made of silt and stardust, she belongs to no one. I want her but cannot have her, for if any soul were to capture her, the moon would pause in the heavens and the tides would pool together the last of their spare change to get her back. I do not envy water for being the one she calls home, I do not envy the sun for being the celestial being she calls lover, for I gave up on fantastical daydreams long ago. She belongs to no one, especially not me.