Sights We See

by Florence Kahuhu

Bright embers sparked behind my closed eyelids. Soft music twinkled in my ears, a river of soulful RnB flowing through my consciousness, and the revving of cars as they passed by us. Warm sunlight caressed my skin, and as I blew a piece of bubblegum, my eyes opened, taking in the scenery that raced past us.

Golden hour.

Time of day when black skin glows.

Coming to a stop, I looked up, noticing a bird’s nest above the light. Little beaks just barely poked out the top, chirping with all the strength their tiny bodies had available. Fluttering in the corner of my eye, the mother had returned. In her beak, plenty of grub she then stuffed in her children’s ravenous mouths, settling them. Taking no more than a few moments, but a rare but easily looked over show of the world’s wonder.

Bringing my focus into the car, I looked over at my friends. Becca, my childhood friend sat to my right in the back seat, as she engaged in a boss-level fight on her Nintendo. The world is usually a little less than dead to her in these moments, so I glanced at Nina in the front passenger side, finding her arm on her chin, just smiling into space. Adorable. I turn to Rick, Nina’s fiancé, in the driver’s seat. My vision of him is obscured, so I hear more than see the mini concert he has going on.

I looked back to Nina, drawn to something about her expression. Curious, I took her in. Coarse, springy curls bounced in the wind around her face, eyes glimmering, as her existence slowed, focused, on Rick. Her Smile got wider as she looked over his face, taking in details Imay never notice. The moment I read about in my romance novels. That moment of perfect equilibrium and you are retched off the ground, all the ties to the world released tumbling around the atmosphere, tethered only to one person.

Nobody ever speaks about what it is like to be the third person at that moment. Riveting. Like witnessing the first ray of sunshine peak over the horizon, a perfect symphony. My heart swelled as I witnessed odes of love wordlessly composed in her eyes for her love.

I was struck. Never had I been privy to such a tender and pure display of raw emotion. Love. A blessing, and a curse for some. A feeling I had thought was a lie. Love? Pointless, doesn’t serve you in any way, and is often conditional. Works have been created in support of love, how precious it is, and how one would suffer just for a taste. Even Lord Alfred Tennyson claims, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ That pain goes hand in hand with love, and I had come to a point of acceptance that while love may exist, it was not available to me in this lifetime. But her eyes, those cruel eyes. To show me what could be only to leave me (once again) to my reality. Nothing but dust at my doorstep.

Then again, hope was the last out of Pandora’s box. Maybe I had been shoved into a world of color and as jarring, it brought perspective. Every iota of my existence rejected the idea, but her eyes were a device not being used against me but still bringing me to my knees. Is this what love is? Powerful enough to inspire embers to spark in my ash-filled pyre of a heart. Shakespeare calls love, ‘…an ever-fixed mark,’ one that, ‘looks on tempests and is never shaken,’ and will stay strong, ‘even to the edge of doom.’ Such bold and fierce and absolute confidence in a feeling that makes him go as far as claiming if anyone ever proves him wrong about it then, ‘I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.’

Perhaps an exploration of the feeling is necessary. Different types of love exist, and while Nina’s earth-shattering display roused warmth in me, it may be that I need to allow myself to accept that I can also experience it, that I too am worthy and should accept love into my life, and in time, I can inspire the same to someone else as has been stirred in me.