6 A.M. Dusk

It was midnight. Yet, even in the darkness, I knew the way by heart. Within minutes, I found myself at the doorsteps of the place I considered home almost half a year ago.

I saw you again for the first time in the middle of spring. You welcomed me with a big hug, all smiles. Golden and blue. Amidst the storms of that evening, you shined like summer. You were breathtaking. Blinding. Warm.

But even summers had storms. Violent. Dark. Beneath your glow were shadows of the winter that's passed. The ice barely melted even as you radiated with warmth.

You were a permafrost.

… I wanted to melt you.

It started innocently enough. Despite the shameless flirting, it was nothing serious. We were wild. We were crazy. We retreated into a world of our own where we kept our distance yet we bared to each other our hearts and our souls. Our dreams, our fears, our secrets. We tried to remain independent as we clung unto each other. We were indulgent. We were needy. We were scared because we were falling in love. And that wasn't part of the plan.

But it happened.

It was too soon and it was too strong. It shook our balance and we fought to keep up, our minds falling way behind our hearts. We lost logic. We struggled with reason. We forced understanding.

It's as if we were in a hurry. Afraid our insecurities and rationale would catch up to us. We were restless— you trying to bury your past; me desperately creating a future. We forgot to live in the present. We lived in a time that no longer exists and a time that has yet to exist. We were ephemeral.

We were a mess. We were a lot of things we shouldn't be. We tried to be a lot of things we couldn't be. I wanted to give you the world. You tried to be mine. But there's no way for me to heal a two-year old wound. I could only open you a new one and call it mine. In a sea of scars, I wanted to make my mark.

We were lovers. We made love. We felt love and all its wastes and byproducts. But love came with a lot of things we couldn't deal with. We were toxic. We tried to keep everything at bay but it was slowly killing you and it was slowly killing me.

That's when you said goodbye, along with the closing of summer, when dawn felt like dusk.


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Read Ethan's reply "6 P.M. Dawn" by clicking the link.