lux aeterna

Watching her suffer has always broken my heart. But the last year or so have been torture for both me and her. Watching her change and grow in all sorts of ways has been one of the most difficult things for me, but I know she didn’t really have a choice.

A few days after my birthday in January, the most important part of her life faded in the morning light. She cried her fair share; this wasn’t as if her spirit had been suddenly snatched by the sunrise. It had been a long and dragging time, like grating your fingers against a dull blade that sharpens slightly with each stroke. By the time everyone around her noticed, the blood had been pooling around her feet for some time. But she carried on, coping sometimes and other times not.

I watched, always. Sometimes, from a distance. The way she suffered was killing me inside, like every time I saw her my heart was coated by another layer of lead. I was powerless; my arms called out to me to do something, save someone, punish another, but of course I stayed still and silent.

Most people are fragile things. But this girl isn’t; not during the day at least, with a smile that could deceive a god. At night, I knew she would break. But I kept to my own light, saving myself, watching her shattered pieces in the sky from my bedroom window. Little flecks of her floated in my mind as we grew distant, resurrecting the beautiful thing she used to be. I wasn’t what she needed, and we would only bring each other farther into the abyss.

I don’t know if I regret the space that formed between us. Sometimes, we still have days when we can’t look in each other’s eyes. She’s pieced herself back together ever so slowly and carefully, with a different shape I can’t even compare to before. She’s a different kind of beauty now; the kind that’s breathtaking without the cracks but even more radiant when you see the flaws rise to the surface.

What she has taught me stays with me as I deal with my own sunrises. There is no adequate consolation for those things that are lost; there is only so much you can do for someone who is suffering. The one lesson that I learned on my own is to ask for what they need, not what you can do for them. But mostly, even when they say nothing, to stay by their side.