Along the coast of adulthood, I discovered a raging waters
I set sail nonetheless with trembling, cold feet towards the uncharted in pursuit of a serene sea of womanhood. It is unlike one of those trips you and I used to take every other weekend to the hills I would have reached blindfolded. I am lost and I am not. I know not of the cruise ahead but of the fear of having to return for the shore I have only lived through in delusion.
I remember spending our evenings in a confined reality, swimming in the nostalgic romance of our hometown. My guileless notion of an idyllic normalcy kept our heads afloat, oblivious of what was awaiting beyond the marker buoys. From Honours degree to an honourable job with an honoured man in hand, inundated me as I question my devotion to your applause. Yet I was left with desolation in proclaiming liberty, in fleeting adrift between your embrace and your exile.
On a train ride overlooking the West Coast peaks covered in filmy January snow, I rested my head on your shoulder once more, silently wishing for a rising sight of those familiar hills. With every passing station the fog grew denser, eventually covering our final stop in absolute greyness. Glasgow, a mirage of nothingness, her haze hiding treasure chests of a promised tomorrow.
But this never came as a surprise to you, my Morpheus disguised so beautifully, tracing my dream out of a city embellished with pearls for the woman we are destined to be. In the early mornings you prayed upon me for this blessing in the coming days. This faith was yours long before it is mine, but the rest have always been solely yours and not for me to abide.
I have figured the price of every silver platter engraved with my initials in giving up my entitlement of a choice. You would not want me chained by the beach but you would convict me once I weighed my anchor. Many times I have witnessed your helplessness in discerning me as an entity of my own and not of your own, for I owe you nothing but everything. I owe you this life and the next, but it would be too sore of me to ask for the day I wished for either.
It is almost as if we were back on those hills, as you hiked ahead and turned to find me carefully trailing your footsteps. You could have sworn a cliff plunging into the Atlantic was hanging by my right, while all i see was your left. But perhaps every once in a while, the right turn we encountered in life is not in place of a wrongful verdict, but simply of a left one. And on my left today, I could have sworn a stair was hanging by the wall of the very cliff, heading down to the sands where the berth is.
By the harbour you bid me a cheerless farewell as you dread for my sinking ship. But you were resilient, and in the backbone of my galleon your vein runs inherently. In their tales they know no ocean too violent for your gentleness, as every coming wave bowed on the face of your gracious hull. Now find it where my voyage will take you, stranded somewhere across the Pacific, an Elysian isle where bliss no longer knows ignorance.
