Have you ever seen the sun go out?
Trigger warning: death, grief, substance use
I am a creative person (painting, dancing, etc) but have never been a creative writer, I love to read and wrote some decent non-fiction papers in college but I have never written anything creative in my 30 years until this spilled out of me today while grieving. I have no clue if it’s actually good writing or should stay personal, feedback appreciated.
“Imagine
The night after a sports banquet, the in-between child turning adult, but only now receiving praise for being something other than the thought daughter who cries for broken people and dead things.
Coming home drunk on feeling normal, something rare but meaningful to a girl who wears masks. Always drunk on feelings but never more, because how could you throw away dreams in exchange for diseases, fights, and broken promises?
And despite the jubilation, she is heavy with ache. The midnight sun was meant to occur, her light shining on a rare event, but she demurred, content to stay hidden in a box of darkness that penetrated her skin and her soul. The only thing the girl craved more than normalcy was sunlight, and the sun’s betrayal seeped into her veins and past the parts that held the broken people and dead things.
She saw the hollow box and spit at the sun, cursing the choices she would never make, seeing her sun but feeling no light. The sun shone bright in the face of her stupor, the girl knowing brightness without warmth is fruitless and distressing. She closed the blinds on the rays and crawled into bed, blind rage clouding judgement as she foolishly wished for only moons forever.
Imagine
The girl is woken by brightness without warmth, this one an anomaly, not the sun but a star, still loved by the girl. For the first time, never the last, morning came without the sun, but cold stars do not speak and the girl searched for signs of her rays knowing they may have lacked warmth but never light. Have you ever seen the sun go out?
The girl did.
First in the box, darker than ever before. She only caught a glimpse, it was enough to make her retch. The world fell off its axis, it rolled until the sun was scooped up and the box held it all. The world, the girl, and the shadow of the dead sun.
The second time she saw the extinguished sun it lay on a table, but the wrong thing was shining and the girl had prepared herself for nothing like this, because how does a burning ball of gas turn gray and bloat and sag and stare lightless at acoustic panels that reverberate the screams of a girl growing pale?
Imagine
12 would-be orbits, the night after a better banquet, the in-between adult still a child, being praised by her star for being the thought daughter who grieves for broken people and dead things.
Never drunk anymore, though past laws repealed when the world lost the sun, but the girl knows now that no bourbon could never burn as hot. Even in the cold, masks turn to grease, sliding through the girls fingers anytime she chases the stars. She yearns for the warmth of the sun more than ever before, deficiencies breaking her bones and her spirit since the day she fell into the box, but the sun is a ghost who only haunts dreams. The girl remains grateful, as the ghost of warmth haunts there too, and an echo of warmth is better than no warmth at all. But the box always evens the score, and the ghost shows all sides, so when it goes gray and bloats and sags, the girl always remembers. The retching, the falling, the shining, the screaming.
The stars still ask the thought daughter, ‘How do you throw away dreams in exchange for diseases, fights, and broken promises?’
The girl always replies, ‘Have you ever seen the sun go out?
Imagine.’”