the sun i never saw

I sat.

I stared.

At the delicate gold picture frame, housing a painting of a sunset inside.

I watched.

I listened.

To the slow rumble of the floor breathing.

Sitting, my legs stretched.

In front of an old painting.

The curtains closed tight.

My eyes open wide.

The world on pause.

As I watched the painting move without moving.

And watching the sun I never saw.

_________________________________

The world is full of mysteries. 

Verses of unheard songs. 

Stanzas of unwritten poems. 

Chapters of unpopular books. 

Yet we sit and fear the unknown. How will we understand what we fear, if the experiences never teach us? They say experience is the best teacher, but I'll never listen.

The sun is a brutal thing. Lavish varieties of flame wanting to hurt me.

I won't let it hurt me.

I'll simply sit on the floor, in the darkness.

For darkness may seem scary, but you can never see the pain when we sit in the darkness. We only see black, and seeing black is better than seeing the sun.

The voices always told me that the sun was evil. So I never went out there. The voices tell me I live in the middle of nowhere. But are we ever truly in the middle of nowhere?

No matter where, we are surrounded by everything. We cannot be surrounded by nothing. Even air is something. Light is something. Ground is something.

Am I something?

_____________________________

The small light shines through the crack in the curtain when dawn arrives.

The little taxi drops the light wherever it wants. And light never even leaves a tip. 

It burns.

The voices always ask, “but why? Why do you fear the sun?”

I shrug my shoulders and sigh.

“Allergies.”

I never knew the truth.

And I guess I never will.

_______________________________

Winter is my favorite time.

No sun, no light.

I don’t have to be stuck at home. 

At least, if you want to call it a home.

A small shack, with little antiques on the shelves and a mini fridge making itself comfortable next to a two seat sofa.

Sitting in the middle of somewhere.

I go outside.

Sometimes.

Only when I’m sure the sun has no chance of peeking through the clouds.

I don’t know what would happen if the sun saw me.

I imagine my skin turning into great boils, red and green.

My saliva turning into slime.

My fingernails slowly sinking into my skin.

Then I scream.

And I blink.

And the nightmare ends.

Do we ever really wake up from nightmares?

Or do we just pick a time to decide that they’re over?

Is the nightmare over?

_______________________________

The oil bubbles and leaps into little air pockets erupting from the pan.

I don’t use the stove often.

Only when I want some sort of warmth that I can’t get on a normal basis.

What do I eat?

I don’t remember.

I smell the oily scent filling the small wooden box that I call a house.

I am the old lady that lived in a shoe.

But that old lady must’ve been happy.

What is happy?

________________________________

I glance outside.

Sun.

Oh it burns.

I close the curtain in a snap.

Like I shut out everything in my life.

No friends.

No parents.

No sun.

Can you  even consider that living?

_________________________________

I sit on my floor.

In the darkness.

Alone.

Like always.

And remember something.

I don’t pull it out often.

I reach under the sofa and my fingers touch a cardboard box.

Inside, a deck of cards.

I don’t know how to play cards.

They seem like squares with numbers to me.

But I stare at them like I stare at my painting.

I take each card and set it out on the floor.

Until the entire wooden flooring is covered in red and black squares.

Neatly filed, one next to the other.

Then I sit on the “couch”.

And I stare at them.

Even I am more lonely than these cards.

____________________________

I’ve never cried.

Not because I have nothing to cry about.

But because I’m so lost that tears get lost with me.

They’re stuck in my eyes.

Just like I’m stuck.

Hiding from my fear.

If fear was a number,

What number would it be?

I say seven.

Seven is definitely the scariest number.

And the loneliest number?

Definitely one.

I am a one.

________________________________

I don’t know how I got here.

I just remember,

Being here.

I didn’t have a life.

What is a life?

I stayed here my entire “life”.

The voices, my only friends.

What is a friend?

I’ve never known these things.

But they still reverberate in my brain.

How do I know what a friend is?

I don’t know.

But I do know that I don’t have any.

_______________________________

The sun is a scary thing.

It sits all day.

Wanting everyone to revolve around it.

Selfish.

Burning.

Ball

Of 

Flames.

I don’t know where the painting came from.

Did I make it?

Probably not.

The delicate lines and flawless shading couldn’t have possibly erupted from my hands.

But I wonder who made it.

I stare at it every day.

Thanking and hating the artist.

They gave me a wonderful piece with a sun that doesn’t look so scary.

But no one to share it with.

___________________________

I laugh.

Very loudly.

The insanity has taken over. 

I kick all the cards on the floor.

Ruining their perfection.

Scrambling them everywhere.

I laugh like a burnt hyena.

I wonder if anyone heard me.

No, that can’t be possible.

Because they would’ve come to help me a long time ago.

I scream, my voice cracking.

The painting sits on the floor, staring at me.

The sun is too much to bare.

Ripping it to shreds is much easier.

My fingernails almost reaches the canvas when a voice goes,

“No. You’ve been scared for too long. Don’t be scared anymore. Scared is for people like you. Who won’t face reality. Or try to live.

Or even go outside.”

The next thing I know, the front door is being opened.

By my wrist.

I step out, with one foot.

And already feel the burning.

“Can’t I just melt away?” I think, “Into a puddle of nothingness?”

But then I turn my face towards the sun.

And my allergies stop.

For one second.