Archive of Our Own

There are some stories so tragic they must be sung by the wind and swallowed by the salt. I was a boy when I loved her, and I will be a boy forever, for time stopped when she did. The clocks dissolved in the seafoam. The stars stilled. And nothing has moved since.

They buried her in a tomb that was not wide enough to contain her laughter. They placed her in the earth as if the earth was worthy of her warmth. But she was always made of wind and starlight and tide, and now that she is gone, the world is ash in my mouth.

I live in a kingdom of sorrow by the sea. My only subjects are gulls, grief, and the ghosts I do not name. The water licks the shore like a dog waiting for a master who will never return. The gulls scream like children torn from mothers. I do not cover my ears. I let the grief pierce through me like needles in skin. I let it stay. It is all I have left of her.

They say the angels were jealous. I say the angels are cowards. What god rips from a boy the girl he loves simply because they dared to be happy? What holiness is this? What justice? If God is love, then let Him rot with the rest of the broken idols. My cathedral is her name. My altar, the cold slab she sleeps under. I offer only my breath. It is enough.

Some nights, I forget what her voice sounded like. That is the worst of it. Worse than the silence. Worse than the way the light curls around her empty chair like it still expects her to return. Worse than the way I speak aloud to her and hear nothing but the echo of my own desperation. I forget the sound of her voice. I scream into the sea until I'm hoarse. It doesn't bring her back.

She loved with a ferocity that made the moon tremble. Her hands were small, but they commanded tides. Her laugh could fracture a man at the ribs, but her touch stitched me whole again. I knew her. I knew every freckle. Every sigh. Every hesitation in her speech. And now all I know is that she is gone, and I am here, and the space between those two truths is wide enough to drown the world.

I live like a wound now. I sleep curled at the edge of her grave because the bed is too cold. The house too large. The walls too accusatory. I sleep in the sand, in the cradle of her tomb, where the earth still smells faintly of her—salt and roses, and something sacred. I press my ear to the ground and pretend I can hear her heartbeat. I can't. But I pretend. Pretending is the only mercy I allow myself.

They told me to move on. That time heals. That God gives and God takes. But I am no Job. I do not ask why. I only scream why. I do not heal. I calcify. I do not move on. I rot. I keep her things exactly as she left them. The dress she wore when we wed, still hung like a ghost in the hallway. The hairbrush on the vanity, with strands of her golden hair tangled in its teeth. Sometimes I run my fingers through them. Pretend it's her hand in mine. Pretend I still know how to feel.

I do not eat. What is hunger, compared to the ache of not touching her skin? What is thirst, when the sea itself cannot quench the burning of my loneliness? What is death, but the thing I crave most, and fear to ask for?

When I walk the shoreline, I walk it barefoot, so the shells can punish me. Let the rocks bite me. Let the surf drag me under. I do not fight it. But I do not let it win. Not yet. I have made an altar of suffering. I will not abandon it easily.

Some days, I see her in the fog. A silhouette. A glimmer. A lie. She does not wave. She only watches. She does not smile. Her eyes are empty. I run toward her. I trip. I fall. She vanishes. The sea opens its mouth and laughs.

They say it was a fever. That she grew pale and distant and drifted from this world like a candle choking on its own wax. But I know better. I know the angels stole her. They did not want us to be happy. They tore her from me because we dared to be joy in a joyless world. We dared to be love when love was forbidden.

Sometimes I wonder if she waits for me. If her soul wanders the cliffs. If she curls herself into the wind and wraps around my throat, begging me to follow. I would. I would walk into the sea if she asked. I would open my wrists like gates. I would drink the night sky like poison.

But I fear I would not find her even then.

I fear the afterlife is as cruel as this one.

I fear that death is not reunion, but silence.

And so I remain.

The tide comes in. The tide goes out. I watch it like a madman counting seconds, hoping one of them will bring her back. I mark the hours by the way the light touches her grave. I speak her name like prayer, like penance, like poetry.

Annabel. Annabel. Annabel Lee.

They carved it in stone, but it is carved deeper into me. Into my bones. Into the marrow. If I were opened, the only word found inside me would be hers.

Do you hear me, Annabel?

Do you see me, broken here in the dirt?

Did you leave me, or did they take you?

Do you dream?

If you dream, do you remember my voice?

I remember yours in pieces. A gasp. A laugh. A lullaby. I hold them like glass and try not to let them slip.

I am not angry with you for dying. I am only angry with the world for continuing.

The sky still burns with color each dusk. The sea still kisses the land. The flowers still bloom. And she—she is gone.

They say time is a spiral, that it circles back. That someday, in another life, I might find her again. That I might hold her. Kiss her. Live. But I do not want another life.

I want this one. I want her in this one.

I want to go back. To the days when we sat on the sand and sang nonsense songs to the moon. When we carved our initials into driftwood. When the world was nothing but her smile, and the echo of my laughter in her mouth.

I do not laugh anymore.

The sound feels foreign. Like a language I've forgotten.

I sleep with my hand on her grave. Each night, I tell her a story. Of the waves. Of the birds. Of the day I saw a girl who looked like her and almost followed her into the water. I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her I miss her. I tell her I would have died instead, if I could. I tell her that love is not a kingdom—it is a tomb.

And she never answers.

And I love her still.

More than I did yesterday. More than I will tomorrow. More than I should. More than is sane. More than is right. More than is holy.

She is not gone. She is in me.

Her name has become the way I breathe.

Annabel.

Lee.

I do not know how to stop loving you.

I do not think I will ever learn.

So let the heavens rage. Let the stars fall. Let the sea rise.

Let them take me too.

I will find you, my love. In this world or the next.