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Dearest wanderer, just out of my grasp, spread to the wind and lost in the seas,
Whenever I see a bluebird fly across the sky, or hear the sound of trickling water, or feel a chill that borders on warmth, or have a bite of food too foreign, or smell rainwater and linen, I think of you.
A flash of blonde hair sends me into a frenzy. I’ve pushed through many crowds, agitating and angering passersby, only to discover that it was never you. A laugh in a similar tone of voice to yours makes me spin around. Just to find that it’s a bystander with his wife. Brown hair, blonde hair, blue eyes, or green, I’m always reminded of you and how you looked at me.
Would you recognize me now? Battered and bruised? Morphed into a monster beyond recognition? Would you recognize me now, after 500 years? When erosion is fast and memories are short? When you see a man, shorter than you, with black hair and golden eyes, are you reminded of the man I once was? The one who’d go out for drinks with you, hold your hand, but step aside when it was time for you to return home? Would you see the man I was? Kind and humorous, loyal and respectful? Would you forgive me? For being scared?
Oh my Bluebird. We could’ve been so much. But I understand that sometimes, I simply wasn’t enough. Neither of us could commit, not in the face of our past loves and lovers. How could a royal soldier ever fall in love with a modest historian?
I have not seen your face, nor have I heard your voice or acknowledged your existence. But I am told you still wake, cradled by grasses and trees of soft and secure. Had I seen you today, what would you have done? What would I have done?
I’ll tell you about myself. I would’ve left. I would’ve ran so far, so quick, so fast. When I see those flashes of blonde, I am quick to run over. But they’re never your shade, never your look. So I know it’s never you, yet I indulge myself. If I were to see you, once more just once, I wouldn’t be able to face the man I loved. The man I love.
She tells me about her time with you. And in return, I say nothing. I am just a coward hiding under a mask of strength. I’m sorry. The way her hand idles and how her fingers rub against each other, I can tell you love her too. But everytime I look, all I can see is you. The wheat-colored hair, the kind eyes drained with time, the gentleness in her actions and the way she observes from the side. It’s all you. You changed her, or maybe she changed you. Or maybe these are all false memories that I have conjured up in my despair over you.
Bluebird, fly far and fly wide
Fly away from my warmth and never return to my side.
Leave my finger as you must do,
Never show your face, only because I fear you
I will never hear your song
Or your tunes
Certainly will not run my fingers
Through glossy hair too
But I will remember how you looked,
The same all along
Your touch has always lingered
In where my elbow has hooked
Bluebird, fly far and fly wide
Away from me and my monstrous tide
My wanderer, my traveller
No more shall be you be my unraveller
For I am selfish and worn
And truthfully, I am not afraid of you,
But rather of what I might do
After centuries of life stuck in my disastrous mourn
Oh, Dainsleif. I am a coward. I’m sorry, truly I am. But how can you ever love a man. A man like me, changed and burnt. Not the same, never again. You will not know this name, though truthfully, neither do I. My name is foreign, unknown and unspied. I do not know it. Not the truth nor the fact. So these days I go by another, short and rather compact. I search above the abyss, with fire stirred in my heart. Forever will I yearn for you, my dying star.
- Enjou.