Room314

I assumed that if I loved enough, I can make it stay. That love was a guarantee—unshakable, unstoppable. The ship, the sails, the silence between us—it all felt tangible, alive, destined to be. I believed I can own it by pure force of feeling. But now.

I am here standing barefoot on the sand, and I see it fade away in the distance. The water edges up to my ankles, not with urgency, but with gentle finality. There is a space between us now, widening with every wave. I want to swim—God, I want to swim. To plunge into the tide and follow it. But the truth is, the boat has departed. And it isn't distance that keeps me back. It's knowledge. It wasn't meant to stay.

It was a chapter. A beautiful, fragile chapter that's now over.

There was a time I thought love was about fighting. That if you cared enough, clung hard enough, you keep the story alive. I chased it like it was mine to finish—as if passion alone rewrite the ending. But I see it now: this wasn't a love story. Not really. It was a story I penned in my head, with a love too real to be a fabrication. And going after it didn't keep it—it took something from me. I didn't just lose them. I lost pieces of myself in the pursuit.

And still, it wasn't in vain. There was love—grungy, rough, asphyxiating. But love, I have learned, is not measured in how much you hold on. Sometimes it's knowing when to release. When to stop chasing the tide and plant your feet in the sand.

So I stay. I gaze out at the horizon and feel the hollowness where once there was fullness. I don't scream. I don't pursue. I merely stand, letting the tide erase the path I once took to get here.

That boat taught me the difference between love that grounds you and love that consumes you.

Still. I wonder.

Will I ever have another love story? One that's mine—not pursued, not dreamed, not lost before it began? I gave everything I had to that ship. I don't know what's left. Maybe nothing. Or maybe something quieter, smaller, waiting to grow in the quiet.

Maybe love doesn't end with the ship. Maybe it begins again. with me.