Vicissitude

Pure unfiltered light shines through my tinted windows. Dusk; my favorite time of the day. It's a beautiful transition, metamorphosis if you will, of the mighty sun muting to a small ball of amber and yellow. You always told me how much you loved the colors of the sky at sunset, these colors that blended into each other, making love when they harmonize into a spectrum of richness. Is it okay to say I already miss you? The sun dipping into an unknown horizon doesn't feel the same without your words whispering into my ears. I know you are still here but you are gone too.

I still watch the sky, the white bleeding into a dimmed golden shimmer and the light existing in meagre quantities. It's breathtaking. I see the unadulterated blue existing for only a few minute at most, white ashy clouds visible like the green specks in your blue irises. You spoilt sunsets for me. I can almost imagine you pointing at clouds and telling me how coherent each shape is. I can imagine you laughing at me, your voice bellowing at the joke replaying in your head. Sunsets were always alluring in your presence.

The sun sits atop a straight line, it's radiance now only a fading orangey-ness. A bright red core shines through, and you may almost miss it if you weren't looking. The atmosphere has shifted, it's ombre and dark and bright at the same time. It's too blue for some and too red for some. I don't know how I feel about it. I see the blue oozing into an ochre that further seeps into a dark-almost, black-brown. It's a tormenting palate, a dullness that floats mixed with anticipation of the moon- and she's here. The moon and the sun exist peacefully in the dusky sky together. Their conclave hurts my heart. What if they were lovers? How unfortunate is it to meet your beloved for merely a few moments in a day? Maybe it makes sense now. The sun dims to let the moon shine; shine through the stolen light much like the sun's stolen heart. It's heartbreaking and marvellous at the same time. These precious minutes are gone too soon, the glowing darlings wish each other adieu and the sky is a black that screams through, cutting our souls and pushing them into the dark pits of sadness and vulnerable thoughts we're too scared to speak out in the presence of the colossal sun.

I'm haunted by the joy that erupts in me by watching a sun-less sky. There is something ghastly pleasing to see the moon take the centre stage. The moon-a dedicated lover, but a lonely lover. I can sadly relate. The poem you wrote for me is forever fixated on my tongue, words running over and over in my mind just like the way you so languidly said how you had now "fallen out of love" with me.

" Did you know?
  Whenever I look at the moon, thinking of you
  The moon shies away
  She whispers in the crisp night
  Of how the beauty is incomparable
  That your radiance is akin to that of the sun
  And the moon is merely the moon
  Because her light is merely a reflection of yours. "

You wrote this in your days as an amateur author but I treasure every syllable that had laid outspread onto that tattered old piece of paper.

And a dark void resides in my heart, I see the stars twinkling, an array of them laying there, bare and naked, for our eyes to marvel upon. But they fail to give me comfort. I feel colder than I should. I see you but I don't. Somewhere in the distance the night sings, I feel it, I feel the emptiness of an exquisite full moon which otherwise always beamed with happiness. Grey spreads around in the form of clouds that unfurl and move in their own synchrony. I see lights moving below my window in a dizzying pace, but it's all neglected, I can't move my focus from you. The moon's scintillating light bounces off into our dark room but I don't see it. The birds croon their nocturnal rhythm but I don't hear it. The wind hisses against my skin but I don't feel it, I simply gaze at the moon swimming amongst a galaxy of winking and blinking stars in an unapologetic sky. The moon never lost itself within them, it simply shone and shone on borrowed light, unabashedly and glamorously.

The night leaps from one phase to another, and I lose awareness of time. I sit through hours, gaping at the night sky sometimes and looking into an inky yonder sometimes. I hear the silence of a sleeping city and it delights me. But the quietness of our room terrorizes me. I feel trapped into a darkness that only seems to suck me in, an unbearable pain emanating in our vacant room. It's too much but I feel so numb too. The dried smudges of blood crumble off at my periodic rubbing of hands. But it's not what bothers me. Funnily it's the least of concerns.

It isn't until I see a now-familiar yellow silhouette metastasizing that I realise the sun is rising again. Time has again slipped through my horrifying thoughts and for a minute I feel like I regained some...sense. I beg to be Icarus, to fly so close to this celestial body, only to be melted away from it's intensity. I beg to be Icarus, to fly towards my impending doom, to be away from here, to be near you. The sun rays ricochet off our bodies and I flinch, only because I realise you are still sitting there, on your favorite chair. My heart leaps with joy, and I almost pounce on you till I realise something is very, very wrong.

Your eyes are desolate, your presence cold. Your skin is pale, and your back impaled with the butcher knife that I so obediently bought. And I see it. A big stain on my hand from your blood pouring out onto it.

And I smile.