You can't work out if it's late or it's early because the sky is that strange combination of morning and night. Sunrises are all you've been seeing lately. And stars. Sunrises and stars. Sunrises, stars and sunsets you refuse to see. As you lie on the grass and look up at the gently changing sky, you wonder if you'll ever become immune to the immensity and the beauty of this world and you shake your head because you know that you probably never will. That's the feeling you hope to hold onto.
You know that everything's ending soon. You know that that's good and that's natural and that's the way life should be. Things should be constantly moving along. You should be constantly moving along. And you are, you pause only to marvel at the stars and the sunrises and that's the way it should be.
You like that when people ask you're able to say that you're busy. That you're really truly busy. Because it's the truth. You are busy working and writing and painting and singing and, more than anything, you are busy running. Before, your runs had happened only because they had to, when you were running from things... Or were you running to things? Even now you aren't sure which direction you tended to run in and you wonder if you ever will know.
Now, there is only one direction for you to run in. And you run because you need to run. You run because you need to know that you can always escape, that none of this has to be permanent and you can change your life in a second. That scared you at first- the fact that a right turn could end up defining and changing your future. But you let go of that fear because, as you reminded yourself, change is healthy and natural and the only way forwards.
Forwards. That's the direction you like to think you're running in. You can't be certain yet, but you think you're right and that forwards is the only way. You refuse to let yourself look backwards, let alone run backwards. Backwards is the past and the only way to escape those shadows is to run forwards and never look back. So you don't. Or at least, you like to think that you don't.
You like to think a lot of things, really. You like to think that you pause to admire the stars and the sunrises because they are pretty and you like pretty things. You like to think that you avoid the sunsets because you have to sleep at some time, right? You like to think you aren't lying to yourself, when in reality that's all you've been doing ever since everything changed. You wonder what he'd say if he was here, if he was next to you, jogging along and grinning at your pink cheeks and making a cheeky comment about the way that your breasts jiggle slightly as you run. You catch yourself grinning at that thought. He always knew how to make you smile and that was one of the things you lo- No.
No you can't think that. You can't let yourself think that. You can't let yourself think of him. Not properly, at least. You can't think about the jokes or the smiles or the very real conversations the two of you had. You can't allow yourself to think about how pretty it looks when the sun sets on water and you especially can't allow yourself to think about the direction you're running in, not properly. You can't and you won't.
Except that you are and all this thinking is silly because you are undoing all that you'd partially tied up and that isn't a good thing. So you run. You run until everything aches and all you're able to concentrate on is your breathing and the steady rhythm of your feet as they hit the ground. You can do this. You have to do this. It isn't like you have any choice in the matter. You can do this because you have to do this and everything will be alright.
Everything will be alright.
Those four words haunt you and make you want to throw something at the pavement because those words are false. You don't want to acknowledge this thought but it's coming and you can't help it and so all you can think about is the fact that those words are lies and you've heard them far too many times. They were the first words he ever spoke to you all those years ago just as the sun was setting and you felt an immeasurable loneliness and emptiness. You had wanted to mock him, to challenge him. Except you didn't, because for ever such a long time those were the four words you'd always craved to hear from somebody else. From somebody other than yourself. It got tiring when you had to be your own best friend and taking care of yourself was all you could do. And so you had taken those words. You had grabbed them and held onto them and, in accepting his words, you had held onto him too. And he had held you right back. And that was how it had all started.
All it had taken was an empty sunset and overwhelming sadness and that had been enough. It had been enough for a long time. For both of you, you hoped. And from what he'd also said, it had been.
Things had changed, though, as you liked to remind yourself. But despite what you try to tell yourself, change is not always good. You shudder, closing your eyes and picking up the pace. You have done enough looking back for what is now the morning according to the sun's position in the sky. It has been enough and in a couple of hours, you will go to sleep and wake up to stars and everything will start again.
And unfortunately, everything will not be alright because things aren't alright and you have lost all grip on what it is to be alright.
But it will be, somehow. You will still be able to get up and smile and be okay because you haven't given up yet. You have yet to give up and, you think bitterly, that is more than he's able to say. Except, as you can't help but remind yourself, he is gone and he is unable to say anything and that is what makes the sunsets so hard and the running so important.
He is every sunset that you will never let yourself see again and you won't let yourself see the sun setting ever again for that reason. Without him, the sky fades to nothingness and instead of believing in the promise of the night, all you can think about is how the darkness you are literally plunged into works fabulously with the darkness he metaphorically plunged you into. He is gone and, unlike the sun, he will not be reappearing.
That breaks you into a million little pieces.