An overwhelmning sadness...

Today is one of those days, sad and lonely, empty and scared. I miss something that was never there in the first place. I'm sad, crying this very moment, and I don't know how to make the pain and loneliness go away. No matter how much I cry, no matter how much I want to be with someone, no matter how much I want to find love, all I can do is dream and wake to nothingness.

Today I will tell you a story, a story of fantasy, romance, and pain. A story that wakes me up with tears in my eyes every time it is told. It is a story of "If only..." and it begins with a castle, white as though it were waiting for someone to paint on it - an empty canvas, a solitary possibility of everything from nothingness.

This story takes place in a world of dreams, a place long forgotten and hidden in every memory. It is a place of magic and wonder and at the top of it's tallest hill lies the Kingdom of Tales. In this kingdom lives a young prince, alone in an empty castle. He has no one, he has never known anyone, and yet he sits at his throne, too big for him to be comfortable, and waits for someone to walk through the throne room doors.

He does not age, he does not move, and as the world goes on, a little girl happens by the ruins of his throne room door. She looks behind the empty doorway only to find more ruins, but as she walks through, the world goes back to a time long since past. Here she finds a young boy, staring into his hands as they hold onto a book a color she has never seen. She asks, "Why are you here?" As he looks up, he answers, "I was waiting." "For what," she reply. To which he says, "For you."

The little prince takes a step out of his chair, setting his book kindly in the now empty space. Walking toward her, he offers to show her his world, and she could only smile. So he does, and he shows her all he knows. He shows her the little toy box in the garden, the one he played with when he was younger. He shows her the big table where he plays with the many empty chairs, one each for every day of a month. And he shows her the library, the room so big that it takes up almost all of the castle. Ladders going this way and that, stairs up and down and across the room. But he especially shows her this one bookshelf, separated from the rest, at the edge of the room and right by the door that never opens.

He pulls out a book from his coat pocket, and tells her to put it in the only empty spot in the whole of the library. The bookshelf moves away from that spot, opening up a small place where only two could sit, and he says, "I've been waiting for you to help me fill this space, for without you, it won't work." She looked puzzled and asked, "What do you mean?" So he takes her hand, steps inside with her by his side, and puts her hand on the wall in front of them. The bookshelf closes behind them and the wall opens up. Beyond that wall is a staircase, white as the stars that shine below them, leading to a small pavilion, whiter than the stairs that found it. Along those stairs, the two young ones walked, forever it seemed, till they stood beneath the pavilion's small, white roof, and when they looked up, they found themselves looking back. Nothing special, only their reflection wasn't quite a reflection. "What is that?" the girls asked. To which the boy answered with all the knowledge he had, "That is us my love, in 10 years time. This mirror shows only truth, and the truth is that we will meet in the future once again, now wake and remember that I am here until then."

Then she wakes abruptly, the feeling of his hand still in hers, and she cries and cries, wishing that his 10 years were the same as hers. Time is cruel the way it moves, while in his land 1 hour could mean a year here, and so she cries the tears that never end, only to finally realize that those 10 years might have already past and something might have stopped him from ever coming back. She hasn't seen him since then and she slowly loses hope she ever will again.

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The story's not over yet, but the sadness remains. My heart forever frozen in a time of darkness, light so close but so far. I know I'll get there one day, I know I'll find love, but the ever long in-between is what hurts right now.