Horizon

The sea, you’d found, was as tempestuous as we were. One moment it lulled you to sleep with a sweet lullaby, whispered promises of rippling moonlight on gentle waves. The next, rocking you awake urgently, shrieking of nightmares and certain death until you soothed it back to rest.

I never understood it like you did. I never could read the currents, the songs of the waves, those shapely crests of foam that caressed your hands as you leaned over the rails. I was always watching you instead. You, with your hair flopping perfectly into place over your forehead, blown to perfection by the sea breeze that always breathed life into your face when it came. You, with your emerald eyes, deep as the oceans you embodied, studying the horizons as you adjusted the sails and grinned sheepishly at me. No, I could never read the sea. I was far too mesmerized by you. You were the sparkling ripples on a calm sea, soothing my scars with your gentle touch.

You were the day, the light, and I the night. When the sun’s last rays left the water and the moon brought a quiet serenity to the sea, I pulled you close and tilted our heads to the skies. The stars were our diary, their maps and constellations spelling out our destiny, our pasts, our triumphs, our heartbreaks. Every laugh and kiss and fight we’d shared on the boat became etched into my heavens as I traced lazy shapes with my wand, telling our story in a language only I could know as you watched, entranced. You were as enthralled by my stars as I by your seas.

I suppose we were made to complete each other, just as the tides follow the moon’s steady hand, so you did mine. You steadied us through the storm as I traced our path through the stars, leading us far from the broken shores we’d abandoned long ago. Together, we could have conquered the world if we’d wanted to. But we never did, for why would we? We had everything we ever wanted in each other. Together, the stars and seas in love, we made for a beautiful horizon.

I always wondered what you saw in me when we met. I was everything you weren’t, and you were everything I could never be. You laughed when I asked you the first time, told me my silver eyes and silk-spun hair had bewitched you. But I asked again, and again, and again. Maybe it was my imagination, but the sea always seemed to darken more on the days I asked. A subtle threat, perhaps. Your brow would furrow as you thought about it before the waves warned you against defining our connection. To try to put it in words, I suppose, would be considered an injustice. I wonder if it was because we were never meant to know. If forces greater than we knew, of love and the hope that never left Pandora’s box, having near been known by human eyes, would have destroyed their own creation to save their mystery.