Far Light

The Far Light

There is a strange mercy in looking at someone who has what you lost.

We are taught to turn away from the ache. The quiet sting of watching another life bloom where yours has turned to frost. We are told it is a poison, a small and bitter thing to be starved of oxygen.

But there is a purity in that kind of wanting.

When you stand in the winter and look through the glass at a hearth still burning, the longing does not lie to you. It tells you exactly what is missing. It traces the precise shape of the hollow space in your chest.

It is a compass needle made of grief. It points toward the thing you once knew how to hold.

People think the ache is a cruelty. But it is mostly a form of remembering. It proves that you still know what warmth looks like, even if your hands have forgotten the feel of it. To look at a bright fire from across the dark field and feel the burn in your throat is to admit that the light was real. That it mattered. That it existed in your life once, before the season turned and the wind took it.

The wanting is heavy. It is a heavy thing to carry in the cold. But it is a weight that proves the hands are not entirely empty. They are still reaching. They are still holding the shape of what is gone.