You Are The Moon

I never stopped loving him, even when our lives sent us in completely different directions. He crossed my mind all the time and the news of his death brought a pain to my heart that no blade that you could plunge into my chest would ever match.

He died in a car accident. Such a common way to die, and I believe that he deserved better than that. He always seemed like the type that would go out with a bang, set the sky alight with his soul the moment he took his last breath.

We hadn't spoken in twenty years and that made things worse. But even though I wanted to, to make things right with him, it felt weird to contact him. I had a wife and daughter, my life didn't have a place for him anymore.

When I got a call from my mother telling me that he was gone, I got on the first flight back home. I needed to say goodbye and convince myself that somewhere in the void he'd hear me, and that he'd forgive me for not saying goodbye before. I'd just walked out of his life the day after we graduated high school, packed my stuff and left for art school without a word.

I knew we'd drift apart on opposite sides of the country and that it just wasn't going to work out. I should've ended it properly but I just didn't have the heart to look him in the eyes and tell him it was over.

I was shocked when I found that he left me something in his will, a journal written when we were just kids; Kids that fell so recklessly in love with each other when we didn't even love ourselves. I flipped to the back and read the last entry, unsure of what compelled me to do so knowing that I was going to read it from front to back anyhow. It was dated the day I left and it read:

"I think I loved him before I met him, that there was a part of my soul entwined with his from the beginning of time. The oceans were made to beat against the shore, the sky to rain upon the crops, and my heart to beat in time with his."

There was no anger and that surprised me. There was merely sadness and longing and the inexplicable truth that he loved me more than I ever knew.

The moon can't see it's own beauty, only it's imperfect reflections upon the waters of the earth. I couldn't see that I walked away from the one person that would love me more than that very moon loves the sun. That's what he was to me, the sun, my light, and I suppose that makes me the moon.

Notes