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TheOne by Janique Muckelvene

Creative Corner is a new initiative within The Retriever to showcase the student body’s creative, short-form work. While still experimental, we thought we’d try to bring out the voice of the arts at UMBC a bit more. Please send feedback on the idea or submissions to retriever@umbc.edu.

He captured my tear in his hand and drank from it. Raising his eyes to meet mine, he slowly moved his mouth towards them, gently brushing his lips across my eyelids, capturing each teardrop upon the tip of his tongue, as if they were wine being released from ripe grapes.

Gazing into my eyes he said, “I have watched you cry many tears. From this day forward you will no longer waste them on insignificant things in your life. I am here for you, my love has been incubating for five years now, I know you have only known me for four. That first year, you did not see me, I was not an active member in your life, but I saw you. I heard your voice and I was captivated by your laughter that very first night at our company christmas party. Through the years of working together and growing our friendship, I’ve fallen more in love with you, many nights longing to hold you, protect you from your strife, but you were not ready for me, so I waited.

Today is the last day you suffer from unnecessary pain, today I openly give my love to you, I will not love you as you would love yourself, if by chance you could be me, for that would not be enough, you deserve more than that.
I will love you until the end of time, as it performs it’s last dance, when the final second passes, and the silence begins, my love for you will ripple it’s way through, pounding on the echoes of emptiness, regenerating the passion for perseverance, causing time to move back in motion, restarting the measurement of itself anew. You don’t know it yet, but you are ready, for my love for you.”
Placing my chin in the cup of his thumb and forefinger, he slowly tilted my head and placed his lips upon mine. As he kissed me to the depths of my soul, I felt my wings begin to rise again.