Solitary

You are the color of infinity staring deep into my eyes. A reflection so thick with negativity that I weep with no emotion. You’re a void. A moving, soulless figure absorbing fire that grows and turns everything red.

I can’t breathe.

Your fire engulfs me yet I feel like I’m drowning. There is nothing else but you, and I feel the pain drenching the air like a curtain of black that never lets the stage light through. A play so eager to begin that it begs and it screams, but you won’t let them in. You won’t let them see the joy that it could bring.

You will not let the play unfold.

Instead, the light casts upon the empty stage, glistening against the waxed wood floors, so ready to shine but met with the opaque, endless darkness.

There’s a loop as your fire sets the curtain ablaze and all I can do is wait.

I can wait for the fire to go out, I can wait for the smoke to subside if it pleases, or I can wait for the curtain to fall. How I so desperately want that curtain to fall to the ground and let the light through so the play will finally begin. But in the empty auditorium, all I can see is the source of the light, the red velvet of the chairs, and the dark path that I know extends to doors that I can never reach. Because with you I cannot move.

And so, I watch you pass me by. I watch as your fire ignites and your darkness consumes everything around me. I feel your heaviness. I feel our weight.

I know that you are mine and I am yours and we will always be by each other’s side. You are the color of infinity staring deep into my eyes and I am trapped within you.

| Samantha Mamani