The Weather

The weather. It's come to that. I guess it was bound to, sometime. The interesting thing is how long it took.

It was always strange to me how some relationships played out differently than I expected. But the expected will always happen, unexpectedly. Time and circumstance are the only unknowns. The rest are constants. And always more constant than I'd like. I will lose her, even when I don't at first. Someday the only thing we'll talk about will be the weather.

I knew this would happen. The moment I crossed that line and turned to watch the ground split behind me, I knew. But things happen fast when you don't know the future. And I turned around to face the sun and forget the canyon. Then sunshine dimmed, but promised to light the way. But how could it light the way? What sunless night has substance enough to guide me? What natural laws did I really think to change? The darkness darkened all around me the gaping whole I would have to cross. And I waited for the sun to rise again. But it didn't. It never does. I had to descend, then rise again myself and make our worlds worlds apart. From so distant she asks me how the weather is, tells me she is shining again . . . without me. "Without you" is all I hear. But I am tired from the climb and haven't lit the sun again in my world. Her words hurt me.

I wanted to hurt her because she hurt me. If only I could be sure she was the last to suffer, to pine for the former, to reach for what's no longer there--then I'd be happy. But not really. But kind of. Because my power to hurt is the inverse of my power to heal. And everyone needs to heal someone, just as much as they long to be healed themselves. But I had no power to do either. To discover this absence is to lose what it feels like to be alive. The bottom dropped out of my world and I scrambled to stab something and hold on to the grip of my knife . . . or I would fall for the hope that love would catch me somewhere else. I let myself fall. And the knife too.

But landing is as rare as sunlight during rain. Love is sparse and floating all around me like moving baskets in the sky. I've tried to catch one, to time my fall just right, to angle gravity. But it doesn't work. I close my eyes and hope that fate is real.