The sad thing about sunsets
is that their beauty always fades into darkness.
Today, she is gone and your coffee is cold.
The seat across from you is empty
and there’s nothing to look at but the newspaper
with yesterday’s news and today’s corruption
filled with the myth of political correctness
and an attempt to make everyone else look bad.
She said her favourite word was absolute
because nothing in the world ever was.
The word was useless, like she thought of herself.
But you could find a thousand uses for those blue eyes
and a hundred words written in each curl of her hair.
Still, “I’m worthless,” she’d claim,
and run off to chase
a fictional picture of what she could be: perfect—
when she knew in her heart no such thing existed.
You always loved the beauty in sad things,
and her sadness made her reflect the sunlight
so that she sparkled like a diamond.
“People have it worse,” she said with a cigarette
in her hand.
But you thought that was the worst excuse.
“Be sad if you want to,” you answered, “no
one can tell you what to feel.” Still she insisted that
you were wrong.
The last line of her letter told her how much she loved
you
and how she realised happiness was a fantasy.
The last night you spent with her was watching the sun
sink
below the Pacific, and though you knew it was off to find
another horizon, the light was too evanescent;
it was too soon.
Today she is gone and your coffee is cold
and it’s another day. It’s the same sun
but it’s a different
light.