Her
The sun rose with a vengeance this morning, stretching her fire into the blueness of the night until no trace of darkness was left. Her magnificent rise was a reminder that I had left him two cold nights ago, had taken the first flight home, running away from the sun the entire way back, trying to catch up with the hemisphere I’d left behind for too long. Life was waiting for me to return to reality. I left love behind on the top of the hill where I’d left him, surrounded by the chill of silence and an air heavy with loss and confusion. I was jet lagged, I thought. The sun isn’t where it’s supposed to be, here with me. It was too soon. I was still stuck somewhere in the depths of midnight. I tried to shut my eyes to prevent the light from finding me, clenching my lids so tightly as if their grip could stop the sun from rising. But she came to me, seeking me out in the middle of my darkness, and nothing I did could stop me from watching her take the throne on her gilded horizon. Something about the way she rose this morning told me that she didn’t come alone. He accompanied her: his passion streaked the sky and came looking for me, those brilliant rays finding their way to the pale brown of my skin and trying to put warmth back into my weary veins. Each ray that struck me carried with it a memory of him, of us. I should’ve known he’d never let me go that easily. Clever fool, sending himself in the depth of the sunlight, letting his love haunt me in the daytime.
Him
There’s no avoiding the night. Every sunset is a reminder that she’s gone, a reenactment of her leaving me in the middle of a drowsy night on the top of a lonely hill. Only one day since she has been gone, and the sun just tucked in, pulling down the night sky like a blanket over her shoulders. I watched as her colors drained from the sky, a stream of blues chasing after the sun’s glory only to be stopped at the horizon, leaving indigo behind in a dark stupor. It sounds like me: an infinite loop of darkness chasing light around this world but never catching up to her flame. The endless chase; the never-ending cycle. I am alone now, with the light of day announcing itself on her part of the world. Her warmth went with the sunlight, streaking the sky with traces of her love, sinking into sadness. As the sun sets for me, it rises for her. Every day, I try to send her a message hidden in the rays of the sun. As bold as she came is as gentle as she left, like the sun when she transforms her fury into a subdued calm of pinks and golds at the end of each of my days. Although the end of one day is always the start of the next, it will always be another day without her.
Sun
It was routine, wasn’t it: earth circling my womb as it always does as I start and end its days as I’ve done for countless millennia. Here I am, stuck in the middle of this galactic experiment, and those silly humans think that I rise and set for them when I do neither. Earth circles me, not the other way around. I’m the observer of all things, of countless people who chase silly fantasies, dwindle precious resources, and make poor decisions. And these two, in particular, adore each other, yet one runs from love while the other lets it slip away. Isn’t this the sadness of the universe? To be gifted with the most valuable of all things, yet to squander it from fear or, worse, stupidity? I try to burn her skin to remind her of what she left; I try to leave him in the cold to remind him of what he let go. Yet neither of them are compelled to make things right. What, then, am I good for? What is love if not my light? What is light if not my love? I can only shine my rays and hope that others do the same.