Behind the Sun

I walked the desert like a fool. Alone and thirsty, I was searching for a reason to continue my journey. I crawled relentless in a dirty garment no educated mind would dare wear. It didn’t matter. I wore it well. They could never possibly see that nothing mattered, not behind the sun.

They looked up in the sky and saw nothing. I saw everything. I cursed myself. I would rather be blind. It was a shameful confession. Yet, behind the sun was a void I couldn’t elude.

I looked beyond the blinding light and found my eyes burdened and burned out. The lack of sight was an easier fate. At least, that’s what my twisted mind told me. It was at best the truth.

“Don’t,” a voice bellowed in my head.

“Don’t go,” I replied to no one.

It was a complicated conversation. I relished the repeat performance, a marvelous dance of words, with myself. It wasn’t stopping. It never did.

Wearied, bloodied, a distant traveler with no companions, I sought refuge in lies. The lies blinded me like an unforgiving sweltering beacon. I was no longer afraid of the darkness and the silence, I discovered only in the truth. I found an ending I hadn’t planned and a beginning I could barely start. There was no way I was letting go of what I knew and I was determined to continue. I vowed to no one but an invisible cavity.

“Don’t yield,” I commanded.

“Stop,” I argued with myself, “continue on.”

I was determined to see myself behind the sun. There, in its gaping chasm, was a melancholy admission of genuine certainty. It was the reality of a life, I couldn’t glimpse in the mirror. I had to stare through the gleaming gold to see the worth. It was a laser point moment in time. Would I find the answers I was seeking?

I fell backwards, I simply couldn’t achieve the end I deduced so imperative. Like a blister threatening to burst and ooze were the mysteries behind the sun.

“I can’t,” I whispered alone.

No one could hear the solace.

“You must,” I determined in a voice I hadn’t followed for some time.

The excursion from my lifeless being resting upon the desert floor to struggled standing was a lifetime. Tangled in the disruption of thoughts from an interfering outside force, I scrambled to complete my quest.

I put my hands up, barely grazing my eyebrows onto a forehead that dismissed all lack of makeup and sun protective potions and lotions. I simply wanted to shield the glistening life for a moment. I could see behind it, at least that’s what I told myself.

Peering ever so carefully now, I looked right through it.

“There,” I gasped.

I was surprised by my success and elated the resolutions I craved in this life existed behind the sun.

I was struck with horror. A bolt of prejudice jostled my mind and my very core.

My life behind the sun was a terrifying disclosure. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Help me,” I bellowed.

There was no chance to return my eyes from the depths of what hid behind the sun. They were tainted now by a realization I couldn’t dismiss.

If I couldn’t control my anguish at the revelation, sleepless nights and thoughtless days would surely follow. I pondered my fate. My arrogant attempt at a reply to questions that merely taunted me now afflicted my soul.

“No,” I roared in defiance.

“Yes,” I meekly concurred.

I recoiled at the sight. I fell back into the murky dust that was the crevice of a desert I so carefully treaded. I let the hot brilliance hit me again until it enveloped me whole.

The cruelty and horror that consumed me washed quickly away like a turbulent river.

“You’re a fool,” I reminded myself.

I would try to warn someone. There was a time unbeknownst to me I knew little of what was behind the sun. Now, I returned to the living. A scathed warrior with a ghoulish tale, it would take time to heal the wounds.

There was nothing behind the sun. I was nothing behind the sun. Darkness, that’s all.