A Broken Sea of Ice

How far? How far can one man go before he has to stop?

How long? How long can someone wait before they have to give up?

How much? How much pain can you put someone through before the snap?

These questions and more have plagued me for years now. I pushed myself so hard, tried for so long...Only for it to end in pain every time. Every time I look at my soul, I see someone different, somebody who makes me question everything I thought I knew about myself.

Who am I? Am I the soldier who fought amongst those harsh waves and clouds, the man who tried to drown out his memories with alcohol, and the person who was struck by lightning for his sins?

Or am I the man who was saved by her love, the one who gave everything he had to keep her safe, and the one who cast himself into the darkest of abysses for the sake of an entire world?

In truth, I know that I am both. Yet at the same time, I know that they are two different people. In this shadowy crevice, so deep beneath the sea, I feel myself being torn to shreds every day. Yet despite that, I remain whole in body.

My very soul is cast out as bait, and the creatures of the depths come to devour it. But even so, they soon perish and burn from the light within it. No matter how much I wish to give in, I know that I cannot...For somewhere, on the surface and amongst its people, she awaits.

The love of my life. The woman who visits the surface of the water above this place every year in an attempt to honor my memory, the memory of one she thinks she lost. She knows not that I live, trapped until my being is able to fully reunite. Every year, she attaches a small rock to a bag of cherry and rose petals then drops it down so that the petals scatter amongst the water currents and float gently down to the place where I am bound. The sight is mesmerizing, and nearly always brings a tear to my eyes.

And yet, still, I find myself trapped and torn into shreds by this blasted curse. My mind shattered long ago in an attempt to cope with the isolation, and yet it has only made me weaker. Over the centuries I have been trapped, I slowly have felt myself begin to fade, my memories slowly dissolving into nothing much like the sand that is stirred from the ocean floor.

But I will not give in. I will not stop. I will break free. And when I do, I will find her. I will find her, and our reunion shall be glorious.

Thus I smile and begin to meditate, once more beginning to draw my heart together.