My Perpetual Sunset

Trigger Warning: Death.

The sheets below me are soft. Your hand in mine is rough.

It’s dark beneath the weight of my closed eyes. It’s been dark for so long now.

My eyelids are heavy as they pull open to take in your face, so close to mine that it is all I can see. I’m thankful for that, for the encompassing you that obliterates all else.

The steady rhythm of the monitor has faded, the echoes of voices of others evaporated to mist. 

When you speak, I feel your words roll off your tongue and tumble from your lips like smoke in air. I can almost imagine that the glow of your face is angelic, that your eyes are alight with a divine power and not trickles of tears running streaks down your flushed cheeks.

I remember the pain. I remember the flashes of metal as my body met the asphalt. I remember the feeling of red, pure red, as my bones cracked and scorched down to the marrow. But like ice cold water on burns, my veins are drenched in peace, and all I feel are the sheets below me and the coarseness of your hand in mine.

You once told me that you had wanted to be a mermaid as a child, and that in order to grasp the world underwater one needed calloused hands. I had questioned your mother on the subject later on and she had chuckled, brushing her forefinger over her lip in that way she always did, and said that your hands were toughened from your life among the treetops.

I thought it was strange of you to lie about something so trivial, but then as we watched the sky fade to dark over my seafront balcony one night, and you turned your head to me with the stars in your eyes, I think I understood.

There’s no galaxy flecked in your hazel eyes now, only the shimmer of the ocean you were so desperate to be a part of. Your lips pull tight in a smile, as our gazes catch and I know without asking what you’re thinking. 

But, no. 

There’s a dimness to them that has never been there before, and your mouth opens to form words. 

I strain my ears to listen and you ask me if I’m scared.

It is enough of a struggle to keep my eyes focused on yours that when I try to squeeze your hand all that befalls is a faint twitch.

Perhaps I may never be able to express it to you, to fully explain what it feels like. Perhaps it is meant to be this way, that you have to wait to experience it for yourself. A part of me hopes you never have to experience this, that when you finally meet your end it will be quick and painless.

But if you do ever experience this, then know that I am not scared, I am alive in the wait.

We had taken that trip to Snowdonia in February a few years back, hiking and camping overnight. It was so blisteringly cold, and by the time we finally found our campsite beside that frozen lake I had begun to wonder whether the trip was worth it at all. 

An hour later and I had finally set up our tent when I realised you had gone. In the pitch of night, with nothing but the cracks of hard ice before me for company, my heart started to race with the hurling wind. 

Then you called from behind me, atop a hill. Clambering up, I joined you.

And the world slowed to a crawl.

The sun was caressing the horizon, the expansive land before us molten with a golden glow. Dew glittered as light fractured through, the grass in the fields seemed to roll like waves in an ocean. Orange and lilac streaked across the sky, and despite the cold we could feel the warmth of the oncoming day as it kissed our skin.

It was a dazzling sea of green.

And as you slipped your rough hand into mine, I felt for the first time at home, at rest.

With a breath, the sun lifted and the staggering sunrise dissipated into day and we retreated, gaining a few hours of rest before we moved on. But it was that moment, that blinding beauty, that perpetual anticipation, that is what this feels like now.

That night we watched the sun set over the horizon again, as if saying goodbye to a close companion that had guided us throughout that day. 

You never questioned why I decorated our new apartment with the painting of that sunset, why I insisted on placing it in the living room. I like to believe some part of you knew without having to ask.

It was home.

As your eyes hold mine now, I feel that home again, that quiet understanding without words. We never did have to speak to understand one another, but oh how I adored the melody of your voice.

The sun is not beautiful once it has set, rather it is staggering in those moments before as it begins to fade. 

I’m not scared, I want to tell you. I’m in that perpetual anticipation.

It’s the electricity in the air as two fingers prepare to touch.

It’s the joint intake of breath before lyrics are belted out and the crowd roars.

It’s the barely contained laughter and a knowing look between two close friends.

The feel of your skin as it curves to mine, as it strokes and moves with the currents of my body; the wait before our lips meet, savouring the heated measure of each other.

When we spent the summer at my parent’s house in Cape Cod, I didn’t find joy in riding back to shore on the board, rather I felt most alive as the waves drew me up and up and up until I could taste the salty spray of the water on my face as I looked down upon the world before me, and my heart raced with the wait for the drop.

Months ago, when we fought worse than we ever had before, I held my breath every moment before you spoke. Because it was worse not knowing what you were going to say; it was worse waiting for the next blow. Watching you leave that night was empty, hollow. Over the next few days I found myself jumping each time there was a knock at the door, because the sheer thought, the sheer hope, of your return was enough to set my pulse galloping.

My life has not been spent enjoying what is, but rather living in what could come next. 

So, as you watch me now, as I ache to watch you in return, and you ask me whether I am scared, it’s all I can do to twitch my finger, to let you know that I’ve never been scared of the possibility of after.

You were my perpetual sunset, and anything that supervenes you is insignificant.

Even if beyond this life there is nothing but oblivion, if I have survived only this long to now taste the eternal abyss, then I will consider my life complete. For as your hazel eyes, dappled with the gold of a sunrise, gaze into mine, I fall endlessly into the unknown. 

Your hand squeezes mine, and it is now all I can register save for the glimmering gold of your iris.

I am no more scared of oblivion than I was scared as I leapt towards you, as the world erupted and everything broke into scarring red. As my cheek met the asphalt and split, as my world thundered along the gravel, as I felt the scream of your name drip from my lips, lost to the moment that wasn’t.

There was no fear in the consequence, rather everything came alive in that moment before, when the car barrelled towards you, and the earth slowed to a crawl.

It is all I have left to say, that I forgive you for leaving. That I forgive you for I never did hear your knock on my door. I forgive you for taking the painting of the sunset with you. 

I forgive you for walking away, and I cannot blame you completely, because I never did chase after you.

We were never perfect anyway, two broken souls attempting to find that glow together. But, oh Lord, I loved you.

I’m glad it’s you here with me. 

I’m glad you found me.

Hold my hand, squeeze it tight and claim my gaze as I fade into that glowing abyss.

As long as I can feel the coarseness of your hand as it strokes mine, I am forever captured in that moment before.

That fleeting feeling of hope, of what comes next.

Capture me within the sunset, darling. The light will burn as long as we hold on to it.

I am not afraid of what comes after life. 

For with the infinite brilliance of now, what comes after seems insignificant.