Excerpt: The Sun's Other Shore

And now I think I believe that the most beautiful story is the one that is never fully told. I saw you standing at the crown of that tall hill behind the old country church barefoot and empty-handed, a sun-dress sentinel at the fading of the day. The late-date breezes had whipped your loose hair into a auburn corona that caught and reflected the sun's fiery light. You raised your arms to embrace the setting sun, and in that moment I knew you held some secret knowledge that I could never comprehend; some fey union between beauty and the sun. By the next dawn I knew I was lost, had fallen hopelessly for the sun-maiden I had seen you become.

It has been a year since that day. I see the sun-maiden yet, but only in flickers and starts like a candle in a drafty place. There are secrets behind your eyes—I see them—but you blind yourself to any mirrored moment. I wonder now if your raised arms were not an adoration to the sun but a desperate prayer to be set ablaze, and ushered into the midnight bleakness of the sun's other shore. It has been a year since that day, and every dawn breaks a small portion of my heart and my breath quickens at every sunset.