Loss…..

I am running, pumping my arms and legs, hard and fast, breath burning in my lungs. A fear as I've never known is wrapped tightly around my heart, squeezing my chest. My mind is racing as I emerge from a wooded place and break free of the brush, tears streaking my face in shiny tracks down my cheeks. I have made it to the place I was to meet him, a beach. It is rocky, with little sand showing between the small boulders and stones. Storm clouds gathering off the coast seem more menacing then I recall having seen them before. A large, shaggy grey dog barks in the distance and I know the sound well. The little bugger has found something new to chase. The wind tangles my cream colored dress around my legs and I am searching the shore frantically, knowing in a deeper part of my heart that I will not find who I am looking for. My hands are shaking as I think of the last time we parted. He said he would return to me but I knew then that it sat ill against my soul. Unsettled, I watched him gather the few belongings that he would take with him in a cloth sack. The little blue flowers along the hem of my dress seemed to laugh at me as my heart sank lower. He would be gone for longer this time. His long dark hair blew in the breeze of a sunny day as my love was pulled from me on the deck of a ship. The ship was a large one by my own standards but not as large as they come. His smiling face seemed to shine at me one last time before the ship was too far to make the men out anymore. My eyes were only for him and I cried. We were to meet again upon his return in one months time at the place where we would always meet. Just down the shoreline from the port. I came to this place hoping against hope to find him safe and well and home again but knowing inside that it was not to be so. Another storm had come to the dark coast not far from our home little less then a week ago. I knew then as I know now, we were cheated. Time was stolen from us. Our time. Our lives, our hearts, our souls would be ripped apart and carried to different worlds. The wind picks up a new traitorous current and what sand there is is flung through the air stinging my face and arms as I sink to my knees. Racking sobs tear out of me and I cry his name, Ryane. A hole peirces my chest from the inside and I can feel death. It calls, beckons me to the waters edge, willing me to join him and meet him on the other side. But I can't do it. I know that he would not want this of me, for me. He would want life for me. A feirce vicious anger wells up in me and I curse the world for it's very existence, beating the rocks and sand with my fists as they bloody. Another bark in the distance. I am weeping as the rain begins to fall, masking my tears but not my pain. The ribbon in my hair falls free and blows away in the wind and rain. Too late i realize it was the ribbon he gave me that day, that fateful last day.