I was cast into the hungry waters,
Beaten and broken,
With nothing but a boat of driftwood
Constructed from the salvaged wreckage
That was my love.
I drifted the haunted waters
Underneath a darkened sky
With thunder roaring in the distance
And light slowly fading from behind.

I didn’t think I’d drift for this long.
The clouds would rarely break,
The rain would rarely relent.
It took all I had not to capsize.
Even during moments of calm,
I was tormented by the memory
Of the light I once knew.

It must have been years since I’d seen the stars,
Felt the sun,
Breathed the land.
Nothing ever changed.
The storms only got worse.
My cries for help went unanswered.
I’d contemplated drowning,
But held out on the hope
That something
Or someone
Would show me the way soon.
Still,
It’s hard to believe the next day will be better
When tomorrow never is.

This was it.
The darkness is all I’d ever know.
The loneliness is all I’d ever feel.
I’d grown accustomed
To the sound of nothing but the waves
Beating against my ship.
But one day,
I heard an unfamiliar thud
And discovered
A message in a bottle.

I read it.
No, I memorized it.
For the first time in years,
The starlight had peeked through the clouds.
It was only enough to read what was in front of me,
But that was all I needed.
“I feel so lonely.”
But, you are not alone.
I bit my finger
And wrote my reply.
This person deserved a piece of me
In case I never found another bottle.

But I did.
This time, with pen and paper, too!
They trusted me.
And I would trust them.
So the messages continued,
Each one breaking a smile over my face-
Something else
I was used to being without.

One day
I saw a flicker in the distance.
I desperately paddled toward it,
The waters eating away at my hands.
It didn’t matter-
Something was there.
As I approached, I saw it was a lantern
Casting light
On to a boat much like mine
And you
Gently tucking a message
Into a bottle.

We introduced ourselves.
The messages now had a face.
The lantern showed me for the first time
How truly battered and dingy my boat was.
But you didn’t mind.
We talked about how we got here,
Realizing we were much the same.
So we agreed
To see one another out of this storm.
Together.

Days passed as we floated along together.
The waters seemed less violent,
The darkness less oppressive.
It was easier to make out your face,
And, oh, how beautiful you were.
All I wanted to do
Was hold you and kiss you.
But I knew the storms you’d been through,
The damage inside of you.
So, instead, I embraced you with words and stories,
And kissed you with hopes and dreams.
We talked about an island
Just outside the storm
That was meant just for us
To live on and be happy
Never to live under darkened skies again.
We’d find it.
I wouldn’t rest until we did.

Finally, I heard you cry out,
Pointing towards the horizon.
I looked and looked,
And finally saw
The light.
I was transfixed;
Overwhelmed at the possibility
That it could be over.
And as the light
Grew and grew
Until it radiated all around us,
I thought about the island we had created,
Believing that it could truly be found.
Then I looked at your face
And caught my heart in my throat.
In the light
I realized
You were more beautiful
Than anything I’d ever seen
Before the storms.
I moved closer to you.
I wanted to embrace you,
Thank you,
For showing me the way,
For fixing what was broken in me.
I wanted to tell you
The words I’d desperately held back
Half in fear they would shatter your bones,
Half in fear they would swallow me whole.
But before I could,
You dissolved
Right in front of my eyes
And scattered into the wind
Never to be mine again.
Never to be mine again.

I fell to my knees
As my boat broke apart,
My faith failed,
My hope crumbled,
And my body sank;-
Welcomed by the darkened waters
That it was always meant for.
And as I looked up
With grasping hands
While the raging water
Tore at my skin,
Opening old wounds
And ripping new ones,
Your image
Faded away.
So I closed my eyes
And let the water tear me to shreds,
Never to be whole again.
Never to be whole again.