Tonight, we sat outside on our lawn stargazing. The streetlights and the lit rooms dampened and outcasted the stars, but I laid there anyway, cupping my eyes and isolated the starlights. At first sight, the sky was murky, but as wind blew and my eyes shifted to the lights, the littlest stars twinkled on the dark backdrop of the sky. Suddenly, they were singing twinkling lullabies.
He was sitting a few feet away, writing his resume and utilizing me as a thesaurus. There was not a part of me that wanted to be elsewhere, but to be there to help him. But maybe, it was more than help I was offering; maybe I felt more than just a friend to him.
I sat there and said aloud, in between helping and stargazing; how shameful we sleep every night without admiring this beautiful landscape; how unfortunate birds never get to see this light show; how we allow ourselves to drugs, music, and love, than to be soaked in this form of beauty. I was making small conversations because a night like this deserves a great exchange of ideas, feelings.
After a while, to no avail of inciting such philosophical conversation, I sat down and stopped talking. I drowned out his questions, his presence and watched the stars instead. Acoustic music was playing out of my laptop as I slept on the bed of grass, to just be with nature.
Maybe he felt bad and realized his presence would be appreciated, so he laid down too. I tried again, to stir conversation. I played with the wild flowers and ripped strands of grass off the ground, measured it with the sky, made faces, and counted stars...
"If there was one thing you could do and not fail, what would it be?" I asked, a favorite question of mine.
Silence. The wind. The whistling trees.
"Can we not talk," he made a statement, "no offense."
"None taken," I chimed.
One song played and then I moved to a far away spot on the lawn. I laid down now and drowned out everything else, especially him.
In that moment, I realized I've been trying so hard to talk not because I wanted to know him better, but that I was trying to drown out my own thoughts and avoid facing the shadows at the back of my mind. Now I was alone, and so they lurked nearer to my attention. Despair swept over me and tears begin clouding my sight. The stars became huge blots of sparkles in the sky and the house drowned out into a faded painting.
The universe felt lonely again. I lost someone I thought was a friend, a keeper.
