A Boat For The Unlived Years (A Farewell to What Never Was)

The rain falls in a hush,
soft as breath against the black water.
The sky wears its mourning plain,
low and heavy,
pressing the sorrow back into the sea.

I stand at the edge of the world,
barefoot in the mud,
the hem of my coat soaked in grief
that no fire could dry.

Before me floats the boat—
small, unfinished,
stitched together with hopes I once cradled like secrets.
It carries no body,
only the hollow weight
of a life we never lived.

No laughter thrown across summer fields.
No hands steadying mine at the learning of hard things.
No arms sheltering the soft ache of my childhood.

Only the ache itself,
stitched into every splinter of the wood,
each nail a word left unspoken,
each plank a door you never opened.

The boat shivers in the rain,
and I light the flame with shaking hands.

It is not rage that guides the fire,
but reverence for what I once believed could be.

The flame stutters, fights,
then sighs into life—
a thin tongue of gold
licking the sorrow clean from the surface of the world.

I watch as the small vessel carries my mourning away,
rocking gently,
disappearing into a horizon stitched with mist.

The rain does not stop.

It weeps with me,
patient and unyielding,
until even the memory of the fire dissolves.

I do not call out.
There is no name strong enough to summon back
what was never truly given.

I only stand there,
as the sorrow washes over the stones,
as the silence seals itself around me,
as the sea swallows the last light.

The hollow where your love should have been
remains.

But now,
it is my own to carry.

Empty.
Sacred.
Mine.