Golden Sun

Everything I ever saw through my childhood eyes was covered and painted in gold by the sun. The trees had always been green, but if I squinted my eyes, I could make out the flakes of golden resin that floated amongst the verdant leaves. The shimmering gold was all around me. From the wrought iron gate to the patio that led to a small, humble brick home we owned. And like Christmas trees adorned with twinkling lights, my world was beautiful just like the night sky.

But that was back when I was a child. Then I grew up, and all the gold turned to rust, and the trees died because I could not bother to water them after my father passed. Disarray crept into the crevices, and the gold I once saw had perished, its whilom enchantment on me had ceased. Its volatile fading encroached around me, and if I squinted my eyes, I’d start to cry.

And still, the years passed, and the trees that had withered I cut down; to make a pair of chairs and a coffin for my mom. A few months later, I buried my daughter, my son and my wife.

All that I ever had, was more than enough, but God, you saw my eyes, stared at them, and took my heart. I was wounded, my faith was lost, but I could not renounce you, the savior of my life. And like a miracle, I listened to your whisper. Within the old things my wife had left behind, I found a little black book, with twenty thousand inside. Her final worlds had not yet been buried, they lay in front of me, a letter she had left within the pages of that book.

Amor,

Now that our battles are lost, you must live on for us. Your son and daughter, mother and father will be by my side, and we will wait for you until God brings to us.

I remember what you said to me, once after love, that gold you could once see through your eyes. Your mischievous smile played on your lips, but it faded so soon. Our troubles weighing you down. Here in Heaven, you will see gold once more. And if you can not, I will fight till you do, the way you fought for us. So brave and courageous. I am sorry we left you so soon, but I leave behind something for you to start again. This pain of yours will carry on, it leaves you bare. Be strong, the way I could not. I will love you forever, and I wait for your return…

I had no better dream then, and with an open mind, I made for the border to start a new life.

I remember like it was just yesterday, 1989, when I was twenty-seven, that I boarded the Beast, to leave my land behind. The freight trains carried all of a nations dreams, all of a broken people’s aspirations, but the train broke me more than a hammer shattering glass. I endured for a while, from Villahermosa to Mexico City, the pain from a broken hand. I’d hit the ground hard trying to get on the train, but I survived. I wondered, if I knew then I would suffer so much, if I would have jumped into the train with little more than a change of clothes and enough to get me across.

It took me a few tries, but I managed to get by immigration, more scared than I had ever been in my life. I was caught once, let go, and carried on. I hesitated, but I didn’t give up. A new life was waiting for me, just across a poorly-built fence and an impregnable ocean of hate.

Mines was a story that had been told too many times. As soon as I took a sip, I realized it was poison… that new dream of mines. The world that had opened, with too many doors and not too many keys, suffocated me. It battered me till I was made a slave of my own volition. I never realized I wasn’t born to be a dreamer, until I awoke to a tiresome routine that only paid for my rent and my food, and my acquired addictions.

How could I not have acquired them? I had lost it all, and coming here, to the land of dreams, took even more from my soul. The solitude drowned me, but my desire to just go back and not have the means to, killed me. I had debts to pay, nothing to go back to, no way to escape. I found the remedy, in bottles of liquor and handfuls of drugs. I had nothing left but to wither, and in my years, I met my end, in a foreign land wishing I was back to be buried with my father and my mother, my daughter my son and my wife.