Sunset

The first time I see the sky,

It’s a warm blossom of colors.

Orange, red, yellow, pink.

Names that meant nothing before.

The sun is dancing,

Ever so slowly,

Back to the dark place it despises.

But it will always rise,

And dance again.

I recall this to a stranger.

She murmurs condolences,

And I don’t understand.

“Were you really living?”

She asks me,

And I, confused, reply,

“What’s living?”

She wraps kind arms around me,

Squeezing me tight.

“I’m living,”

She says.

“And you’re living.”

Living - warmth

The next time I see the sky,

I am lying on cold kitchen tiles.

It swirls with inky blues and blacks,

And I can feel it

Drip, dripping on my skin.

It’s cold, distantly cold,

And I can’t help but feel

That the cold tiles below me

Hurt more than the burning pain on my weak body.

“Pain is only proof that you’re alive.”

The ink-spiller echoes in my head.

My bloodstained cheeks,

And the sky on my body

Are proof that I am alive.

I will cling to it.

Living - warmth

Living - pain

The sky is a calm blue

When I realize what I did.

I fall.

Nothing hurts anymore,

And I have a small feeling

Telling me that nothing ever will.

“She’s breathing! She’s living, get the medics!”

But I wasn’t.

Nothing hurt anymore,

And I didn’t want it to.

A loose grip on a bloody knife,

I say to them,

“I got rid of the ink-spiller.”

They don’t understand.

“Hey.”

One of the people looks at me.

“I’m not living anymore. I don’t want to.”

He looks down at a cut on my leg and replies,

“You’re breathing. That means you’re living.”

I stay silent.

They put me in a dress the same color as the sky.

Living - warmth

Living - pain

Living - breathing?

I’m not in a blue dress anymore the next time I see the sky.

I sit on warm grass,

Laying down next to a person who I learned to trust.

I’m safe.

They won’t spill ink on you.

It’s quiet, and I’m happy.

“Hey, Lewis?”

“You can call me ‘Dad’, kid.”

“What’s ‘living’?”

He looks at the sky a little longer.

“It changes. It always changes.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like living?”

“Sometimes you will, and sometimes you won’t.

But when you don’t, just know that you will again.”

“Okay.”

I join him, and look up at the sky.

The sun is dancing,

Ever so slowly,

Back to the dark place it despises.

But it will always rise,

And dance again.

“Dad?”

“What’s up?”

“Thank you for giving me a sunset today.”