The sky was volatile. The bright pinks and luminescent oranges careening swiftly over the horizon, swirling perfectly with the ravaging blues and purples of the emotion-filled atmosphere. The harmonies of the sky danced in his eyes. Creating a galaxy so infinite, I could no longer keep track of my existence in them. I was his first love, keeping him anchored to the idea of a girl he believed could hold his head high above the roaring tides. However, he was not mine, and I could not be the savior he manifested among his endless thoughts. The illusive sea beckoned him, and I could not pull him ashore.

That is why I lay beneath the sky with him that day. To detach myself from a being that was slowly destroying my own. With ignorance and no recognition of what was occurring, those eyes did not reflect the bright specks of stars he kept our memories entrapped in. They now appeared to harness the anger of a thousand suns waiting to burn as I presented the idea of ending the undefinable existence of what we were together.

The silence following this break-up told me everything I had assumed, that this would hurt him, and he would once again drift afloat to sea. I saw the sadness, and my initial reaction jumped at the chance to comfort his depreciating soul. As I told him I knew how much he must hurt, he immediately countered with the biggest force he could muster to split the Earth beneath me. “You know nothing about pain.”

That is when the chasms cracked the surface of my heart, burying deep beneath every emotion, standing stagnant beneath my memories. Drastic chasms opened within my heart with the conclusion of this sentence. Any source of emptiness instantly became flooded with the sharp vacuum of a simple phrase.

I had seen pain. I had known pain, and pain was now a companion. This boy knew my story. He knew my being, and now he was someone who looked at me as if I was a blank canvas seeking a way to taint my clean surface. I know pain is different for everyone. Some see it strongly in a physical matter, and some see it clearer in the metaphysical.

We all know pain. How it wraps its thick black vines clawing on the surface of our hearts. Us desperately trying to release its grasp. Now, I knew chasms. The way they pry a hole even beneath those painful vines. The guilt of constantly trying to fill them even when the face of impossibility stands at its bottomless pits. We all have our hidden chasms, I had just wished to never discover mine.