The Sun Also Sets

The sun is setting behind the hills and I am sitting on The Stairs. Large stone blocks and tall columns climbing the hill between town and the college. There are 216 stairs between town and my apartment. I've counted them over the couple hundred times I've climbed them, each time a little easier than the last. I've since found an easier way.

But these stairs. The Stairs. 

They are my border. I go no further.

I want to go to town. I want to see friends. I want to have a drink and watch a band. But I'm not ready. It isn't time yet. I'm moving forward, just beginning to. I can't yet.

I have headphones in and someone has set up a PA and a laptop and is DJ'ing from the top of the stairs for some goddamned reason. I have headphones in, sitting on a large stone block off to the side, and I cannot hear them. 

The Stairs. The sunset. Me.

The heat on my skin and a thin layer of sweat while I stare down the hill and up Broadway. People down the sidewalk and crossing the street. Enjoying the evening, being people, being.

I wonder if I hold on so long because it's part of the job? Because I said it and it doesn't just disappear? It holds on. Do I hold on so long because it is part of the obligation of ever expressing it in the first place? Don't say it if you don't mean it?

But I argue against it. It isn't obligatory. I feel these things. As present and real as the sunlight in my eyes. As the pen in my hand. As the people on that street. It isn't obligatory and I'm just looking for excuses. I'm moving forward. I'm out of the house. I'm watching the sunset. None of this is obligatory and all of this will fade. 

Each day is better than the last. Soon I will be better. I will be okay. I see these things for what they are now, even when I wish I couldn't.  

I will let go completely. I will be okay. I always am.

New days come. The sun rises.

Days end. The sun sets.

I pack up my things, my phone, my notebook, the Hemingway I'm reading again, and I walk home. 

Up the stairs, past the DJ, onto the campus, through the parking lots, onto my street. Lucy Dacus in my ears now and I think that I'm going to title this some stupid fucking joke and I know that it's boring, but it's relevant and who fucking cares anyway? All of this will fade