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Have you ever been engaged to a boy for 10 years and not once did he look at you with affection? And then you fell in love with a boy on the run who died trying to protect you?
You wear the wedding ring he gave you and carry around grief in a velvet blue pocket. You and the shaman know you’ll never love again and even as your mom tries to find you a husband, you tell her with a smile and casual flip of one hand being single is trendy while the other fingers the folded edges of his memory.
You spent a lifetime chasing a man and will spend another being chased by the ghost of one. You’re strong enough to crush his enemies but weak enough to miss him. You refuse to be Shim Cheong; let the sailors jump themselves. No sea will take you as sacrifice anyway— it would spit your bitter taste all the way to shore.
Never have you or shall you bow to a chestnut.
And yet.
He is both inescapable and unattainable. He is the burn and the salve. Life suddenly looks so long without him by your side. But you can carry the weight of a cello and so you can carry him too, through all the days of the past and all the days of the future.