Grasping the Sun

I remember those days. Sitting out on that hill. Finding some tree to perch ourselves on. Sun setting on the horizon. Bringing with it complexes in the sky of varying hues and intensity. With colors that changed as it set, from vibrant oranges to deep indigos or even a bronze-like color that stretched across those thick white clouds.

I’ll always remember your face as we watched them. How content you were. Seeing the relief on those deep brown eyes. They’d glow like bronze in that sun, just like the bronze that colored the clouds. A polished bronze, metallic and gleaming. Around them discolored skin blackened from fatigue. I knew how tired you were. How much it hurt to get out of bed and keep trudging on. How you wished I could just talk; finally let you get it all out I wished I could’ve but sitting in that tree I forgot about it all.

All that encapsulated my mind were those deep bronze eyes. And that damn half-smile you had while you looked at it and admired it. Those lines coming from cheek to ear that’d appear. You were happy. Finally happy. Even if temporarily. But I wished it could be all the time. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe.

Your mother and father would text you while we sat there. ‘Come home now.’ they’d say in authoritative tones. But you wouldn’t. You’d stay and watch the sunset. Sitting there with me. Sometimes you’d hold my hand, and we’d talk for hours about shit that didn’t matter. But it mattered to me. Then we’d go to the bottom of the tree and sit among the roots. Looking up at the branches that reached towards the sky.

We’d sit there in silence and gawk at them. How tall they were, how they seemed to glow in the sunlight, maybe even how old they were. Like tall giants, they outstretched their arms in pursuit of the sun. Trying to go farther and taller until they could reach that celestial body. As if they wanted to become one with it in a deep embrace. I always wondered what they’d do if they caught it. If they could finally reach far enough and grasp it. Would they be able to hold it? Or would it just burn them?

Then we’d sit and watch the stars from that hilltop. Looking at each constellation. Try to figure out which ones were which. You would connect the dots. Creating big figures that filled the night sky. “That one looks like a scorpion.”, you’d chime. “No, that one looks like some lines.”, I’d say back every time. But you’d just laugh at that. “See the beauty.”. I wished I could’ve just for you. Could’ve told you about what I saw in the sunlight, how your eyes looked in it, how your smile seemed to glow as bright as it. But we were just kids. And I was a kid who couldn’t connect the dots like you did.

We drove home each night in silence. The radio blared an assortment of genres. Jazz, RnB, Rap, all spectrums of music. It wasn’t the music you liked. You loved heavy metal, power metal, all types of rock that I didn’t. But I thought you’d still enjoy my music. I’d sit there and sing and dance like a performer. Serenading you like an actor until the silence broke in. As I’d drive, I’d try to catch glimpses of her face. Sometimes I wouldn’t recognize her. Those bronze eyes I knew were now just brown. And that half-smile was now just narrow lips.

Dropping her off she’d stay in the car to talk. About me mainly. How I was wrong. I needed to be better. More emotional. “In tune” as she said. I promised I’d try to be better. She’d leave and I’d remain. Thinking of it while driving home just to fall asleep and wake up to forget about it. If only I could just show her all the poems I wrote about her and those days we shared. We did that for three years. Never once did I show her my writing.

I remember leaving for college with her. The excitement of full autonomy filled her mind, but not mine. I sat up that night before she left. Just sitting there. I thought of those sunsets we experienced together. Of the trees that broke through the soil just to try and reach the sun. And how they’d never reach it.

I helped her move in her stuff. Even carried in some big ass wooden bunk for her room. And some big ass chest full of all her personal belongings. Every item being moved in leading to the inevitably that there’d be nothing left, and I’d leave. That was it. Her parents took me home that night.

It was my turn to move in. Three hours away near a big city in Western Michigan. A beautiful campus with huge oaks and collections of flowers that would leave anyone in awe of their beauty. But not me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. What she was doing, how she was doing, if she thought of me. Those raced through my mind the whole time. I forgot my own family was even there to send me off to adulthood. And then they too were gone.

Isolation was an odd thing after all that time. She barely spoke to me. Not a single phone call. Texts were of a casual thing. Like elevator small talk. And then they weren’t. They were nothing.

I came to visit her that late August day. A beautiful August day. Clear skies with the sweltering sun in the sky. Driving two hours just to see her for the night. Talk to her finally. I talked with her that whole night. She told me I had to be better. Looked me dead in my eyes and said,” I don’t see myself being successful with you, and I need to be successful.”. I knew her father had drilled that into her. That work ethic. Maybe I was a bum. But I wasn’t going to be. Promised I would become a better man. Just for her. We fucked before falling asleep without another word. The next morning she didn’t walk me to my car like she normally did. I drove home thinking about how I’d make it up to her.

‘We need to take a break.’. That’s the exact text you sent. ‘I need to focus on me.’. Miles away I wish I could have seen you type that out. If there were tears or not. I imagined torrents of water flowing from your tear ducts. With each tear accumulating until it formed a tsunami of despair that drowned you. So, I said ‘Ok.’, not knowing the next step. Just wanting to stop that tsunami. Ease your mind a little. I was finally in love with you again. But you weren’t.

That was it. There was nothing left. While I was alone in my dorm you ended it. Told me it was for my sake. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’, was the text you sent.  Truth is it was you; it always was. Two weeks later you found someone new. Meanwhile, I sat alone with four white walls. Thinking of you. Whether you cried about me. If you thought of those sunsets like I did and drown in it. I wished it would drown you. That a wave of sorrow would hit you and steal the very air from your lungs. Wanted misery to be your companion like it had been mine. Yet, all I could picture now is dry, darkened skin around your brown eyes. And how they once had seemed to be bronze.

Broke her pictures in the woods the moment I came home. Six long months with no texts, or calls, or clarity. Just nothing. Needed some catharsis. So, I broke them. Tattered her pictures into the woods and let the wind take them. Sat on some logs after and looked at the sky as the sun began to set. When I noticed the trees once again reaching to grasp the sun and I finally found the answer I had been looking for. We were never going to make it.