My Eclipse

My eclipse–

You.

All smiles and light, open-hearted to the world. Your hopes, the way you cared so deeply the slightest scratch bled you for days. How vulnerable your voice whispered across the phone, spilling secrets only your shy soul knew.

When you reached for me in the dark the day your sun went out, hands swirling the air, finding no hold. I stood watching the shadow spread, black that took you under to a place I couldn’t follow. I counted the seconds until you’d surface again, eyes blazing, breath full of warmth. Still the space between us stretched, caverns down the underside of our ribcage, ticking time too broken, feeling our way across the crags that kept the sun at bay. The pearl white of your eyes, begging for my light to hold you up as the solar system you fell into welcomed your silhouette, grey… charcoal… ebony.

I could not be the one to save you. To love you back to life. All I could offer in the terrible siege of shadow was a prayer to pull the dark away.