Absence

By Ashley Laub

I was the Sun

but I didn’t know it

so how could I show it?

I would hide my sunlight

in little pockets and crevices

where only if you went looking long enough

you would find them.

And when you saw the sunlight

in my smile

or in my eyes

as I walked into a room

if you were lucky

I would hand you a pocket of it

so you could feel its warmth

wherever you went.

If only I had known one day there would be none left to give you.

Because as time went on

and I gave you my pockets of sun

the light in me grew quieter and quieter

as the stardust and the darkness

grew louder and louder.

And

on the day when my sunlight

was sucked from my body

i tried to give it to you

but

i found

all i could give you

was my darkness

and the cold blue light of a star

so far away

it couldn’t even possibly reach you.

I had nothing left to give.

and yet, you didn’t leave me.

why didn’t you leave me?

were you hoping that one day

you would look at me

and see the familiar glow

in my skin

and it would remind you

there was still something underneath it?

because i didn’t even know

what was under it anymore,

either.

When you looked

into my eyes,

you used to see:

Life.

Now you just see:

Gone.

And that’s how I switched

from giver to receiver.

The pockets of Sun I gave out like handouts

must have made their rounds,

because it seemed

they had orbited the earth

and now they were returning

to me.

Bright

glowing

golden

little trinkets

that warmed

the hollow absence

underneath my skin.

You look nice today.

I missed you!

This made me think of you.

I love you.

Maybe there was something under my skin, after all.

I had no sunlight left to give you,

but the light

of what could have been

reflected

in the moonlight of my eyes

lighting up the darkness

and I showed you

that nothing truly dies.

Ashley Laub is a senior. She encourages you to be a conductor of light if you can't radiate light yourself.