I'm In The Sun, I'm In The Moon.

I used to wake up to see the sun rise each morning. There was something about a pastel sky that made me happy. Pale streaks of yellow and pink that contrasted a sunset, birds chirping in senseless communion, but harmonious all the same. Only the best parts of the world were yet awake. I considered myself lucky to behold them. In many ways, I was like Spring. Vibrant in my colors, fervent in my harvest. I made good company, casting a soft light in many skies, or so I thought. 

Then I was Summer. Unbearable to some, enjoyed by others. I couldn't help the opinions of those around me. It is, after all, my nature to burn. To feel my own heat scorch the skin of those who stay in it for too long. I watched as my world hid from me behind closed doors. I wondered, am I too close to the surface? If I pull back, will I still be Summer? If only I could be Spring again, then I might still have another sky to brighten. A sky other than my own. 

That's the thing about seasons; they change even if you don't want them to. For some time, I related more to Autumn by no choice of my own. My colors faded and they found it aesthetically pleasing. Between the wither of my leaves and the warm tone of my malnourished stems, I made for a perfect color palette. They did not know that I too was burned by my heat, maybe that's why I became distant. The evanescence of my life cost nobody their own and where I felt frail, the world felt content. They saw past my internalized struggle with identity in the same manner a temperate wind saw past my branches. 

With every friend I lost, every narrative forged by the masses, placing lies before my name, my warmth grew colder and colder until finally, I became Winter. I sleep past the sunrise. I don't see myself in the sun the way I see myself in the moon. I no longer burn with revival, but with animosity. Like stars shone across a night sky with no trace of yellow or pink. The memory of Spring haunted me in the form of guilt until one night, the memory of Spring faded like its color. I see myself in the way seasons change. You see me in the way that they don't. I am a product of spiritual depravity, of broken loyalty, and of existential loneliness. I forged my many names from these things, but for now, I just call myself Winter.