Let Go

f) a quiet lake, a ghost

The air here was stained with a sadness that lingered. Everyone who came felt it, and somehow knew that it would never leave. He knew it, too, and they didn’t understand why he stayed and lived in this permanent melancholy. It was because she was still here, too.
He felt her. He chose her. She wanted him to leave and be happy. Happiness would only be an option for him if he got to be with her, completely, once more. Forevermore. But this sadness might kill him first. Or maybe that's what he needed to happen for his wish to be granted.
This girl who always sat by their quiet, strangely still lake didn’t realize that when she left, she took all color, energy… All life with her. This lake, with water so still the surface seemed to be made of glass, no longer could show her reflection when she searched. He still searches for it, too. He couldn't bring himself to stop reaching for the dissipating presence. No one else felt her because no one ever knew her the way he did. No one had ever felt her with the entirety he had. No one had accepted her with the entirety that he had. That he continues to.
Weightless tears fell from her translucent eyes as he opened a box labeled with a woman's name. It was a name that meant everything to him. A crimson brightness, a warm love and a color that his most painfully intimate memories were saturated in.
His eyes screwed shut, his heart aching with intense yearning as his coarse fingertips traced the hand carved letters that spelled her name. He whispered it fondly, and then fell into broken sobs as her warmth enveloped his body as if she were holding, comforting him again.
She was. She always will.

The box closes and she finds herself sitting lakeside once more, wondering why their vibrant love didn’t keep the greyness away. He deserved to feel alive again.
She didn’t know the only time he was capable of feeling the spectrum of life and color again was when he called to her by name, and when the old photos in the box showed him her smile, the gentle beauty cutting his heart in the most cruelly addictive way.
Let go.
I can’t.
I won’t.