Sunrise/Sunset

Sunrise

Under these stars,

I could have sworn we painted them ourselves.

Hung our hearts

next to the bright one in the north

to guide us home every night.

Lock your fingers in mine

and look up to the sky with me.

Let’s find our way back

before the sun rises

and that beautiful painted path is gone.

_______

I don’t want to sound pathetic

—I think that I really sound pathetic—

no “woe is me” or I’m dying from the lack of you,

but I do miss your picture lighting up my screen,

seeing a “good morning” text when I woke up for the day,

and telling you “I love you” before I went to bed.

I miss those consistencies that I was used to

that, in the end, were anything but consistent.

_______

I dropped him off at his apartment.

He got out of my car with a tear in his eye

and one last “I love you”

and I knew

in my gut—

that dirty fuck of a thing—

that it would be the last time.

That next morning

at 6 am on the dot

I saw a plane peak over the tan buildings

and soar into the sky.

I knew it was him

and I knew

in my gut—

that dirty fuck of a thing—

that it would be the very last glimpse of him

and his existence

that I would ever see.

I watched the plane as I walked,

refusing to step on the cracks in the sidewalk,

taking a deep breath because—

for some reason—

the air was cool for the first time in a long time.

The sun burned the morning sky red and purple

as I watched that plane become a black dot

and then nothing.

That is all that we really were in the end.

That’s all became.

An “I love you”, a plane, a dot fading into the sky.

Nothing.

Sunset

We watched the Earth tuck in the Sun.

Warm bodies pressed together with lapping,

steady breaths between us, we prepared to do the same.

“Goodnight,” we said.

“Goodnight,” said the Sun, breathing every color into the Sky.

Then black.

_______

I wasn’t surprised when the Sun set on us,

but it was that last glance—

the one with the tear hung in your eye—

that had me believing that you’d come back

and watch the Sunrise with me again.

_______

You’re the end to my summer,

the final evening spent outside under fireflies and clear black skies

where the horizon just over the trees is aflame with a city miles away.

It’s only darkness from here,

the winter months are growing closer and longer.

I will retreat inside to a cold bed

and a warm heart,

knowing that my summer months were spent loving you

and only you

even if it ended terribly.