We came a long way. Part of me wants to say it was too far a length in such a short time, but too far doesn’t sound right for someone who needs to make some serious headway. “She had come so far. Yet she had so far to go. That was the nature of the journey.”
I can still see the starting line. There’s a better vantage point from here thanks to some serious uphill domination. Yet something about seeing the beach and the invisible imprint of the ferocious shipwreck that rocked ahelluvalot more than our boats frustrates me to the the point of mindless and nearly ravenous despair.
“When, if ever, will I put the distance between that and us?”
The saltwater pools in my eyes, like I’m still under the water. Like I could slip down this incline and tumble so far so fast, I’ll hit the surf before I get a chance to catch my breath. Right back where we started. Again. Again. Again. Maybe this time, a jagged plank of wood will conveniently finish the job. No. No. No.
Part of me finds it hard to care that I feel this way at all. It’s conjured by a deep desire to no longer crumble under the weight of myself, which appears noble, but the evoking embers were born of Origins destructive flames—destroying the chance of seizing my full self, because she does not want to feel. That is the true motivation. Not curative defiance, but fearful refractoriness.
“It makes me weak, but I wish it easier,
and some days I wish it easier and easier…”
And she’s tired. Tired of the incline. Tired of the breakneck pace that seems to reward her with no significant distance. Tired. Tired. Tired. So tired, she could drag us back down with her. Not to the beach, where we might actually pick ourselves up and start once more, but to her abyss, the place under the Lighthouse. Where things started burning, truly burning. She threatens to be deadweight if we continue to press, or worse. Her tears are not bitter like the ocean spray that continues to sting our eyes, for they are too acidic to taste, and scar a land still desperate for healing.
“Why won’t she just… act right?”
It is a cruel question, one asked only by myself, for myself, but only truly cruel if I do not acknowledge it as just another wall preventing me from seizing my true self, and is a wall I built. To brush off the things that fucking hurt. To dismiss its scorching as my own weakness. Like I’m touching the sun and turning to nothing.
Walls. Walls. Walls. Build em up and break em down. More walls. Walls. Walls.
No wonder we’re so friggen tired.
It’s just a blip in endless time, but somehow the hysteria can be felt and heard in nearly all places. It’s bone-deep and stretches beyond the sea. That sense of crazed and misbehaved never seems to wash away, so the navigator asks, “When, if ever, will I put the distance between that and us?”
Where the fuck can a witch find a light that doesn’t burn? I’m not sure it exists, but I have no choice but to search.
Origin knew of other things before the fires began. Before the silent rage turned her to flames with a heart of mangled steel wool. It was lit far earlier than I thought.
And that’s why, on this glance, when I look back, and then forward again, the distance traversed seems utterly, embarrassingly negligible.
We sit upon rock with few words to share. There is a dark and silent understanding of some things, and then cold and overwhelming incomprehension of others. “She had come so far. Yet she still had so far to go. That was the nature of the journey.”
We sit close, humbled by how much more needs doing, but reminded that we are stronger together.
“I hate this place,” says Bitter Irish Woman, and she is quite fucking bitter. She’s ready to taste the acid, like a venom that would numb the things wrong, because she, too, hates to hurt. I love her revelries, but I fear what they will do to us in this place that feels like being stranded.
WCR says nothing. She singularly pushed upward while the rest began to tire and lag, and while sunkissed and glorious for what she’s done, she’s utterly spent.
That deep, deep desire to not only mean well, but truly be well. To truly do well. To not crack up, like I belong down deep in a well.
You are called upon to help us succeed where we cannot alone.
You had something, before that light started to burn too hot to manage. Before all that damage. Before Origins smouldered, there was only love.
Not snubbed out. Never snubbed. Only buried. Buried in ash. Beneath the Lighthouse.
We dig it up. We go through the wreckage with our worn hands. Again. Again. Again.
We’re not finished.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I look up after a long day of wiping my salted eyes, and the shadow of evening blankets us.
I’m surprised to see Origins stoked a small fire, and while unwilling to face it today, it is welcome warmth and comfort while the others weep under the sweeping galaxy.
July 6th, 2026
Written by Randa 