i learned in sixth grade that light travels. this means that when a star dies, we still see its light years after because that’s how long it takes for the light to reach earth. they say that sunlight takes eight minutes to travel to earth and because of this, when the sun bursts—as it is destined to do— the world would be as bright as warm as ordinary for eight more minutes. life would be the same for eight silent minutes and then it would all be over. the reason i bring this up is because i have just spent more time staring up at the ceiling than i did sleeping and i came to realize that i’ve outlived my eight minutes— eight minutes that i’ve tried time and again to stretch. eight minutes that i have tried to ignore in hopes of never having to say goodbye at all. eight minutes that i have tried holding on to the one person whose light filtered through the dark abyss in my soul, my heart. and in trying to prolong the inevitable, i realized that my eight minutes had come and gone and now i found myself stuck in that dark labyrinth trying so hard to find the light. i was a shell of what i once was, powered by the pretense of those eight minutes that haunt me taunt me and threaten to break me. cruel. that was the word. cruel to be made to believe that these eight minutes would be an eternity still cruel to be made to believe that these eight minutes were still at my disposal. i learned in sixth grade that light travels. this means that when a star dies, we still see its light years after because that’s how long it takes for the light to reach earth. i learned in tenth grade that light travels, yes, but it’s no use waiting for dead stars.