Sea of Strangers Read online

  Also by Lang Leav

  Poetry

  Love & Misadventure

  Lullabies

  Memories

  The Universe of Us

  Fiction

  Sad Girls

  sea of strangers

  copyright © 2018 by Lang Leav. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing

  a division of Andrews McMeel Universal

  1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

  www.andrewsmcmeel.com

  www.langleav.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4494-9494-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959243

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

  Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department: [email protected].

  For Michael

  You, me, and the sea.

  Introduction

  It has been almost a decade since I wrote the poem Sea of Strangers. I still remember that moment with great clarity. I was coming to the end of a difficult period in my life, though when the end isn’t in plain sight, you don’t realize how close you are.

  I was drifting to sleep when the poem hit me like a lightning bolt. I sat up and grabbed my pen and notebook. My hand could hardly keep up with the words that were rushing into my mind. When the poem was down on paper, my eyes flooded with tears. I felt a powerful sense of relief, one I can’t explain even to this day.

  I had no way of knowing, when I was sitting alone in that tiny bedroom, that in just a few short months, I would meet the love of my life: a man who lived across the ocean from me, in a little house by the sea. I didn’t know I would cross that ocean to be with him, that waiting for me on the other side was a life I’d always longed for but never expected to find.

  The way the poem Sea of Strangers came to me and what transpired afterward is a testament to the power of words. I know with all my heart those words were like a compass that led me here, and I hope they will lead you somewhere beautiful too.

  Sea of Strangers

  In a sea of strangers,

  you’ve longed to know me.

  Your life spent sailing

  to my shores.

  The arms that yearn

  to someday hold me,

  will ache beneath

  the heavy oars.

  Please take your time

  and take it slowly;

  as all you do

  will run its course.

  And nothing else

  can take what only—

  was always meant

  as solely yours.

  New Beginnings

  If I have learned anything this year, it’s that I won’t ever be ready for what life throws at me. I will never be adequately prepared. I won’t have the right words when it counts for something. I won’t know the right answer when fate itself is staring me down.

  I’ve learned I can go on waiting for something, sustained by hope and nothing more, or I can put it to one side and shrug my shoulders. Bravely accept the fact that I can’t keep my heart safe any more than I can stop love from taking everything from me.

  I have learned to stop saying yes when I don’t mean it—to live as authentically as I know how. To allow the tips of my fingers to skirt the darkness, as long as I remember to keep my eyes fixed on the light. And as one door opens and another closes, I will move forward with the knowledge that unlike so many others, I have another year ahead of me—another shot at making it all the way around the sun, and a chance to get it right this time ’round.

  Keys to the Kingdom

  If a boy asks you for your name, don’t give it to him. He will say it back to you in a voice like gravel and honey, and you will crave his hands all rough and sweet. But you’re not the kind of girl who builds her house from sticks; you are a fortress, stubborn and strong. Do not give away the keys to the kingdom to anyone less than a king.

  You Had Me Once

  You had me once—

  wild and willing;

  you wanted a lover

  who took you to the edge.

  Wasn’t it I—

  who gave you that feeling?

  A love that danced

  upon a ledge.

  Then came another

  who offered you safety—

  and you chose to be

  with her instead.

  Contentment

  There was a time when I thought I wanted more. When I saw the sky as a soaring highway and the world as one big carousel. But those yearnings have grown so distant, ebbed so far away from me, they feel as though they belong to someone else. All I want now is a rainy day, a roaring fire, you and I talking about how quickly the time has gone.

  Witness

  It is the mark of a great poet to write words that feel as though they have stood witness to your most intimate memory of love.

  Reclaiming the Sky

  Ask the sun to relinquish

  the sky to the moon.

  Tell the moon to rise

  with a fierce

  unyielding vengeance.

  Remind her it is now

  her time to glow.

  Moving On

  Leave him, let him go. Don’t be the crazy ex-girlfriend or the shoulder to cry on. You’re more than just an ego boost, a story he can tell someone he’s trying to impress. Just walk away with your head held high and don’t give him another second of your time. I know you love him so much that every step is killing you. But this is the moment you’ll always look back on as the day you put yourself first. Go and make something beautiful of your life and I promise you, one day you’ll forget he was ever there.

  Shelter

  My father was a house,

  my mother was a home.

  We Never Broke Up

  We never broke up. I am on my second cup of coffee and you’re just waking up. The sun is streaming through the curtains and I go to kiss your back.

  We never broke up. You find me on the bathroom floor again after a bad day. You pick me up and we talk it through. You tell me nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Not when we have each other.

  We never broke up. It is two in the morning and we’re laughing so much, it hurts. We keep telling each other to go to sleep, but neither one of us does. I was so happy— I could have died that night. Sometimes I wish I had.

  We never broke up. Only, we did. As I lie awake wishing, willing you here. Dreaming of the day you’re in my arms again, asking me why did we ever break up.

  Into Existence

  If you wrote a line about me, it could never be false. Even if it is. Don’t you see? You are writing me into existence, so please be careful with your words.

  Broken

  They put me in a gown and sat me in a chair and a man in a white coat showed me picture card after card and said tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.

  First he showed me a china plate and I said, hunger.

  Then he showed me a dead bird and I said, fallen.

  Then he showed a pictu
re of you.

  I closed my eyes and said, broken.

  Darts on a Board

  I don’t know if it was me or her or the one who came before that. What did it matter? We were all just darts on a board, wishing we had hit the bull’s-eye.

  The Fisherman

  I spend a lot of time thinking, maybe a little too much, about things that have been. Like when we first met and I told you someday, I would marry a fisherman and live by the sea. Then as we began to fall in love, that throwaway comment grew in significance.

  Whereas you, on the other hand, are always thinking, what if? Spinning these wild hypotheticals that are sometimes sad, other times hilarious. Often, I wonder if we are living in one of them. But then, I don’t think it’s possible—even for you—to conjure something up this perfect.

  And that is our main point of difference. I will keep mining ground we’ve covered to see if there is anything worth salvaging, and you will always be looking for new territory to explore. But there will be times when we switch, when you will be behind that metal detector, and I will be standing at the helm.

  So we’ll always be okay. I’m certain of it because this, right here with you, is everything I have ever wanted. You’re my fisherman.

  …………

  I love it.

  The honesty and insight make this story so precious.

  I will keep mining ground we’ve covered to see if there is anything worth salvaging, and you will always be looking for new territory to explore. But there will be times when we switch, where you will be behind that metal detector, and I will be standing at the helm.

  I am your fisherman. Come live with me by the sea.

  Where It Hurts

  There are days when the melancholy settles on you like a sudden change in weather. The kind of sadness that is intangible. Like the presence of an ache where you can’t pinpoint exactly where it hurts, you just know it does.

  An Impossible Ideal

  Men don’t compare us

  with other women.

  They compare us

  to an ideal.

  Take Back Your Power

  Greet the world with no expectation.

  Love as though you have never been hurt or betrayed.

  Let go of the ones who take so much from you

  yet offer nothing in return.

  This is how you take back your power.

  Anything for Love

  Fear isn’t a reason when it comes to love—it’s an excuse. Anyone who has ever been in love will tell you that. When it happens, you don’t think about the consequences. You’d turn your life upside down to be with that person. You’d do anything for them.

  By the Sea

  They say that those who live by the ocean are waiting for something. Someone must have decided long ago to put me by the sea. To live each moment by the light of the stars.

  I cross off days in the calendar, although it seems inconsequential. In a blink of an eye, an hour can stretch into years. And I think my love has forgotten me. As I am caught somewhere between the sky and water, like the moon, waxing and waning, tending the tides.

  The Things She Asked

  That was what got to her the most. The things she asked for were so infinitesimally small, she felt as though she shouldn’t have had to ask.

  High Tide

  Are you somewhere looking at the sea, my love?

  You loved to watch the tide come in.

  Loved the fullness of it.

  Said that’s how your heart was

  when I smiled. I was angry once

  about how much you loved my smile.

  Some days it felt like a burden, to smile for you.

  To keep the lines of worry

  from etching into your forehead.

  You said I was the girl who couldn’t decide

  between the ocean and the shore.

  Said the only way to make me fall in love

  with the present was to turn it into my past.

  Have You?

  After all these years without you, I haven’t reconciled this pain. I have yet to make peace with it.

  I don’t even know where to begin.

  They promised me that time would fix it, but seeing you again takes me right back to yesterday.

  And every day from then to now, subsisting on the lies I tell myself when the truth is, I can’t let go, I haven’t let go.

  Have you?

  Falling into You

  It was so easy falling into you again, like losing my place in a book and then retracing my steps back into the past, to find the part in the story I left off.

  A Wild Goose Chase

  The things I sought

  could not be bought,

  nor do I know

  where to find them.

  All his thoughts,

  the ideas they court,

  and if I am inside them.

  Strength

  Don’t let them tell you that your pain should be confined to the past, that it bears no relevance to the present. Your pain is part of who you are.

  They don’t know how strong that makes you.

  Writing

  There is one thing you should know about writing. It will inevitably lead you to dark places as you cannot write authentically about something unless you have lived it. However, you should always bear in mind that you are only a tourist and must always remain one. You were blessed with the gift of words, in order to bring a voice to suffering. But do not be too indulgent despite how addictive sadness can be, how easy it is to get lost down the path of self-destruction. You must emerge from adversity, scathed but victorious to tell your story and, in turn, light the way for others.

  Forever on My Mind

  I thought of you with

  my heart already broken;

  I thought of you

  as it was breaking again.

  I think of you now,

  as I am healing.

  With somebody new—

  I’ll think of you then.

  Back There Again

  I know he found you and brought you out of the darkness. But don’t forget he put you back there again.

  With Anyone Else

  You came into my life and made everything else feel like a rehearsal. Love always came to me as a question, but with you, it felt like an answer. I didn’t know I had put up walls until you brought them crashing down. I couldn’t figure out why love was different with you until I realized it hadn’t been love with anyone else.

  From Everyone

  When you don’t have the whole attention of someone,

  you find yourself begging for it from everyone.

  My Place in the Universe

  I feel my life culminating to a point, the delicate threads of my existence joining to form a tapestry. The events up until the present that had seemed of no particular significance, now imbued with a deeper, darker meaning.

  I can see it so clearly—the greater plan. I understand that I am both the architect and tenant of my destruction. I can feel it so acutely like an ache in my chest, knowing ultimately that I am locked into a chain of events that I cannot stop, an outcome I cannot alter, feeling at once helpless yet hopelessly awed by the power of my part in this beautiful, brutal expression of the Universe.

  Meant to Be

  If they were meant to be in your life, nothing could ever make them leave. If they weren’t, nothing in the world could make them stay.

  Shield You

  Who are the ones who are saying those things about you? What right do they have to pass judgment on your gift? Don’t you know how you emanate light? So bright they can’t look away.

  Don’t you know since the dawn of time, poetry has been used to shield you from those who mean to do you harm? The greatest power lies in our words, and these are th
e ones I have written to keep you safe.

  Memories Lost

  If I could, I would erase myself from your memory. You would lose all recollection of loving me.

  You won’t remember why you stopped.

  September Love

  How many years must we put between us to prove we are no longer in love? How many summers and Septembers, distractions and chance meetings, remnants of our sad, hopeful love in another’s look, an all too familiar gesture—how long do we go on dragging our aching bodies day after day through this yawning, yearning world, searching for a glimpse of what could have been?

  Tell me there has been someone else like me, for you. That your experience of love has not been defined by the way I spoke your name into the hollow of your neck. Ask me if I have found the same kind of reverence anywhere else but in your slow, patient hands, your sea-salt lips spilling laughter mid-sentence, my heart rising in a crescendo like a wave ready to crash.

  As you whispered to me, love is the only thing that time cannot touch.

  After all this time, my love for you burns constant and true, my guiding light, my morning star. Time is testament to the relentless, unyielding power of this old, ancient love. A love I will carry with me, from eons to oceans to inches, back to you.