This is what Valentines Day makes me think:

That's not the whole truth, though. I was also listening to Sufjan Stevens when I wrote it.

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The first day in weeks it’s not freezing, but even the somewhat warm air flowing through his hair is forgotten almost as soon as he notices it. That seems to be his mode today.

He is sitting on hilltop, looking down into the valley he has called home. From up that tree, he knows from childhood, he can see the old house where his grandmother lived. He doesn’t bother to look anymore; he hasn’t looked for a long time.

What he’s looking at now is the whole of his life until that single moment. He sees his first dog, his first car, his first kiss, his first death. He remembers all of those things.

There are moments of lucidity in his random musings, streams of cause and effect building up in his mind, but there is just as much confused recollecting. Just a lot of thought, no point or purpose.

Without warning he is hit by a feeling satisfaction, not with life, but with memory. He’s remembered enough now, and it’s time to go.

The young man turns to face the other horizon, stretching across a grid of pasture and forest. Somewhere out there is a new future, a new feeling. But not for him. That future is for someone else.

The blood pools heavy around him. The old man who drove the car is sitting on the curb, head in his hands. He’s probably crying, but the impact’s done something to his hearing and he can’t tell. There’s a man in blue trying to get him to lay down, but the sunset there, over the fields and trees, is just too good to stop looking at.