The Sun That Only Rises When I Close My Eyes

I am standing in a street that does not exist until I remember it perfectly. He told me he would meet me here at noon, but the clock on my wrist has been running backward since we first kissed under this maple tree—a kiss that hasn't happened yet, though its warmth is already etched into my skin like an ancient scar.
I wear a white dress to signify purity in a city built on beautiful lies. The sunlight filters through leaves that breathe out silence and inhale the noise of distant traffic. I look up at the sky not to see where I am, but to confirm that gravity has forgotten me for just one afternoon.
The paradox is simple: he loves me because I left him; I stayed with him only after we said goodbye. Every step forward on this narrow alleyway brings me closer to a past that refuses to be behind us. My straw hat shields my eyes from the brilliance of an absence so heavy it feels like presence.
I can feel his fingers brushing against mine in the space where our hands almost touch—a tactile ghost, a physical echo. He is here because he isn't; I am whole only when we are broken apart by time. We have mastered the art of being together while remaining strangers across decades.
As I tilt my head back and let the light blind me into seeing clearly, I realize that our romance is an impossible loop: a healing wound that never closes because it prefers to bleed sunlight.

Editor: Paradox