Ashes Of The Blood-Bound: A Viking Funeral For The Love That Never Lived

You were the architect of my beginning—
a silent hand in the sketching of my bones,
a ghost in the ink of my veins.
Creator, shaper, stranger.
The first tether.
The first absence.

I carried you for too long,
an anchor made of longing,
a hunger stitched into the fabric of me—
searching your face for shelter,
your hands for belonging,
your voice for permission to exist.

But love was never offered,
only riddles in sharp tongues,
only gates that slammed shut
at the sound of my knocking.
A moving target,
a sky that shifted just as I dared to look up.

I bled my knuckles raw
against the doors you would not open.
I swallowed the silence whole,
mistaking it for an answer.

And still—God, still—
I tried to make a shrine from scraps.
Tried to braid myself into your absence.
Tried to rise from ashes that were never embers.

But tonight, I build the pyre.
I strip the longing from my ribs.
I gather the broken promises,
the hollow songs,
the empty rooms I made of myself for you.

I lay them on the boat—
one by one, with trembling hands—
and I set it adrift.

The flame catches.
The fire rises.
It devours every almost,
every ache,
every prayer I whispered
into the void you left behind.

The night bears witness.
The stars blink their solemn blessing.

I do not weep.
I do not chase the wreckage.

I watch the fire carry you
into the black mouth of the horizon.
And I say goodbye—
not to what was,
but to what I was forced to dream of in your place.

When the last flicker dies,
I turn from the shore,
hollowed, holy,
a cathedral rebuilt from its own ruins.

I walk into the dark,
lighter.
Lonelier.
Alive.

And at last—
untethered.