Stargazing.

 ‘How long would you love me for?’

‘Well, hello, Lana Del Ray. Ha-ha.’

‘I’m serious. I miss you. And you’re moving farther away an-‘

‘STOP. Stop. Stop. Stop. You wanna know how long I’d love you? Really? You want an answer to that?’

‘Well. I know it sounds stupid b-‘

‘Damn straight it does.’

‘BUT you’re leaving me with nothing here. You. You bring me here and you go away. And I can’t even wond- I- I can’t even wonder what’s going on?’

‘NOTHING is going on. I just have some things to do. You wanna know how long I’ll love you for? Forever.’

‘Ha.’

‘Fine. Not forever. Look up. See those stars? When those stars. When they start to dim out. When they die. Each and every one of them. When the sky’s so flippin’ dark that the stars can’t guide me home. Then. That’s the day I’ll stop loving you.’

It wouldn’t happen all at once. Of course, building is a slow and tedious task, somewhat messy too but destruction is quick; quicker than building anyway. Of course, the best disasters, these so-called calamities, these beautiful works of art, they can take time. A rotted piece of wood growing weaker, a little leak in a dam, one wire short-circuiting over days, weeks, months, years until the wood finally snaps, the leak begins to gush in earnest and the wire fizzles out and catches fire.

And so, it didn’t happen all at once. Rather, I counted. I knew, oh, I knew alright. You’d think I’d be that aloof cancer-patient who doesn’t know what’s happening until death is upon her, standing beside her, pulling her into a cold embrace. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But no, my one sin is consciousness. It is my sin, it is my vice, it is my curse, it is my damnation and it is what doesn’t let me sleep at night. I could feel it. I counted the stars every night. I love to stargaze. It. It’s something that helps me focus.

So yes, I could feel it. Even in my sleep. Although I didn’t really sleep a lot. But even then I could feel the rope stretching taut, fraying just out of my grasp. Some place my fingers would brush but a place I’d never be able to hold together. SUCH a helpless feeling now that I come to think of it. Having the best seats in the house but not being able to actually do anything to stop what was to come.

I love stargazing. You know I do. And so, you sent me someplace where I’d have the stars but I wouldn’t have you. At least, not easily. I was your Rapunzel in a tower. However, what I’d forgotten and oh WHAT a thing to forget, what I’d forgotten was that the prince never put the princess in the tower. He rescued her. Do you know who put her in the tower? Banished her to a field where it’ll be just her and the heavens with their burning jewels? It wasn’t the Prince, oh no, it was the villain. But, like you always said, let’s not fling accusations. Yes? Let’s not accuse. Why bother when we can just watch?

Anyway, foolish Rapunzel that I was; banished to faraway lands, content with my stars, the ones you’d said you’d strung up just for me. I’d spend nights counting them. And one day, they began to dim.

You thought I wouldn’t notice but I did. Even as I slept, I could feel the fire going out. They. The stars were dying. And you wouldn’t pick up your phone.  It was always work. Long hours. Something urgent.

And this foolish Rapunzel spent her days counting stars. Convincing herself that they were strung up just for her. You strung them up for me. You’d love me as long as the stars were in the sky. As long as you could find your way home.

Yellow leaves crackled underfoot but my eyes were trained upon the heavens.

And then for a moment. Something shifted. Did the world tilt on its axis or did all the seas release their sorrows in one great sigh? What changed that my shoulders felt light and my heart felt heavier? I don’t know what changed. But for that one moment. For just one brief moment, the smallest of moments, so quick that you might have imagined it. The world went blind. The night sky darkened and swallowed the stars.

For that one moment, the stars did die. For that one moment, every star died and then. That, there, was the moment when I realized that you wouldn’t be returning home.