Ode to albatrosses

Sometimes you can walk through a field of poppys and feel like they're on fire. They're so red it hurts your eyes. They're beautiful. Other times they look so pale. The light is all wrong and though you know that they're beautiful, that they are flawless, they just don't look so arresting as they did earlier. The beauty is wasted and over looked.

Sometimes there's beauty and you don't notice it at all. Sometimes you know that you're happy, and that everything is so good, but you take it for granted because it won't go away. It can't go away. But nothing lasts forever. You can have one perfect night. One moment that you know will stay with you forever. And though it was perfect, who knows what can happen the next day, week?

The poppy dies. The light fades. These things are inevitable. But the memory stays. It lasts for as long as you do, and you don't need it to last longer. For you, specifically, this is forever. And a memory that lasts forever is as perfect as the moment. You may know that you woke up the next day and walked away, that afterwards life continued to go on. But the memory got up and walked away with you. And if it was that perfect then it'll last for as long as you need it to.

I can still feel his hair, spiky beneath my finger tips. I can remember every taste, every smell. I can remember the sound of my laugh in the silence. And yes, in the morning I woke up and I walked away. Like this will all go away. There's a time limit to this, I can tell you the exact date. And that date was a bit of a shock to be honest, like a punch to the stomach when you aren't looking and don't expect it at all. And I'll be upset, but I'll cope because no matter how much I fall in love with him, I always do.

And if we finish it before then at least it'll be a lot easier in the end. Saying goodbye always hurts. Every time I stand at the airport and see another person leave it causes a little more pain. Because it isn't that you can't see them, it's just that you don't. It's that you know that more than anything else you want them to stay where they are. You want them to stay with you even though you know that it's a bad idea and selfish and everything else. I can say goodbye though. I've got good at it. I sometimes don't cry anymore. But at least the memory, if nothing else, will last.

Labels: A field of poppies, Flying, Poetic licence