Shine
She was beautiful, a
sculpture of perfection.
He was tall, and dark,
and strong.
Her eyes were green, and
his were brown.
Her hair was red, and
shoulder-long.
One autumn day she moved
into town,
And lived right down his
street.
They were only little
then, boy and girl as one.
The day they met,
something began between them.
She saw a dark fire in
him, burning with intensity,
And his mind churned and
crackled with poetry.
What did he see? A girl
like the sun,
Who shone out waves of
happiness,
And the incredible joy
of being alive.
And that was what she
needed,
And that was what he
longed for.
So they became friends,
bound together day and night
By their emotions, and
as the years went by
They did everything
together.
Two people, shaped by
each other
Into a single coupled
spirit,
Neither diminished; in
perfect harmony.
He could finish every
sentence she said,
But she said them anyway
so that he felt them harder.
Everyone taught that a
boy and a girl
Could have only one way
of knowing each other,
But they were proof that
this was not true.
Weren’t they?
As time went on he
realized they were right.
He wanted to be even
closer to her,
And every time she
touched him it was harder to let go.
How could he tell her
about his feelings,
And change everything
they ever had?
The sight of her became
a torment, a knife
Turning in his heart,
that must stay hidden there.
But he could not hide
his pain, and as he sat
Consumed in silence, the
darkness rolled out
From his heart in
choking clouds.
She asked him what had
hurt him so,
But of course he could
not tell.
It was the first secret
that he kept from her,
And it pried apart the
bonds of their friendship.
Finally on one fateful
night
They fought,
A terrible
confrontation, and all their promises
Of loyalty and all their
oaths were recanted.
She fled in to the rain.
He cried into his hands,
That could never hold
her body now.
And when she heard his
broken sobs,
She slowed, and stopped,
and turned.
She came back to him,
and she held his hands
In hers and forced her
eyes upon him,
And in a last attempt at
reconciliation
She threw her soul into
his
Down an iced-over bridge
Of shared experience and
she asked him
WHY?
Why had he done this
unbearable thing?
He looked up…
…and in her
tear-stained eyes he saw
The last desperate
chance; a final act of hopelessness.
So he stared into her
verdant eyes.
And through the rain and
through the wind and through the night
And his tears and hers
He told her of the pain
that ate at his heart.
On hearing this she said
nothing.
She listened until his
voice dissolved again in broken sobs,
And she let go of his
hands.
And through the rain and
the dark and
After a moment that
lasted an eternity she said—
YES.
He never knew why, or
why not, and neither do I.
But in that angry night
they shared something new and wonderful,
And all their troubles
washed away
In the rain that beat
against the glass.
He woke in her bed the
next morning,
Filled with dreams of
their euphoric night together,
And feeling the warmth
of where her body had been.
Then in a wild horrified
moment he saw that she had gone,
Could not face him, the
completion of her spirit
Anymore, and he raced
Down the stair and
Out into the dawn,
His only thought, to
find
The girl he
Could not live without—
But there was no finding
to be done.
She was standing there
on the hood of the car,
Singing out loud as the
sun came up.
And they knew it wasn’t
right,
But it felt so good, and
her mother didn’t mind
Like they thought she
would.
Now he falls asleep
every night with her softly breathing
In his ear, and her hair
on the pillow
Reflects the glow of the
moonlight.
Again they were one,
twin extensions
Of a single soul, and
yet different,
Like a mirror that
doesn’t quite reflect what it sees.
A bond even deeper now
then before,
Because it flowed
through their bodies
As well as their hearts
and minds.
The next time they saw
me,
She told me everything
there was to tell.
And I heard, and smiled,
and then laughed at the shine of it all.
