Bending Toward
the Sun
—
Sergio Brito
ONE OF THEM DRIVES, ONE of them plays music: he drives, she plays music. A sliver of the crescent moon hangs in the balance. Desire obfuscates the road they’re travelling on, but they’re leaving Los Angeles, they can tell that much. They follow the sliver of the crescent moon, they follow it until it disappears under the palm of the rising sun. Now, the ocean at their shoulder. Now, no words are exchanged. Now, they listen to the music she chooses.
She saw him in the glow of her window. She opened it and invited the breeze. He left before she caught a glimpse. Days later, he came back to her window. She opened the door to her room and he stepped inside.
She strums her guitar for him to the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore. He buries his feet in the sand, wriggling his toes in the cool grit. A gull watches them, a side eye, waiting for an opportune moment. He feeds her while she plays: what does he feed her? whatever it is the gull wants to steal it. A few wingbeats and a rush at his hand. The gull leaves with their meal in its mouth; they laugh.
Strange to fictionalize a life whose veracity isn’t yet solidified, as if its goodness prevents it from crossing the threshold into confirmed reality. A danger, once mythologized it will never be true. Prove it to the genie who granted you this life [yourself(?)] that you never deserved it. A poem the poet never wrote.
Ice cream melts down the waffle cone, onto their fingers, now sticky with its sweetness. Their tongues have tasted it all. Now, the frozen treat; earlier, the salt from the ocean stuck to each other’s bodies.
They play a game called “Dangerous Jumping,” a relic from her childhood. She explains to him the rules and soothes his doubts. They climb the face of the stone at the edge of the beach, the beach together. Wrinkled finger clasp onto nooks carved into the eroded monolith, markers of an ongoing romance. They climb and climb and climb and climb, far beyond the point they had imagined. The stone and their climb continue until they touch cloud, its moisture coating their next hold. Both slip and freefall into the cerulean sea.
She came home with a thorn in her side the size of her index finger. Using a scalpel, an incisor, a promise, he carved it out and placed it under his microscope and ascertained its origin; it wasn’t a thorn but a stem. He asked her to tear it in half and make a wish and she cried tears of joy. A wish spoken out loud is a wish that goes unfulfilled so she kept it to herself.
We go to Mexico together, her second time in the country, to get our teeth cleaned by my childhood dentist. I think about writing this while I’m out in the waiting room, alone in a white concrete box on an uncomfortable chair, my gums covered in blood. She steps out and smiles: a bloody grin.
They slept facing away from each other. Every waking hour they shared with one another, but the hours of dreams they kept to themselves. She dreamt of him; he dreamt of standing at the edge of a Sulphur pool, in the distance a trumpeting geyser. Sometimes he had nightmares, vicious, unspeakable nightmares. To calm his nerves, he listened to her babble in her sleep. On occasion, she spoke directly to him. “Was just thinking of how much I love you…” she told him once with her eyes closed. “Do you remember what you said to me last night?” he asked the following morning, but she shook her head.
They wash up on the shore of a different world. Beyond the highway that snakes down the coast, a field of sunflowers burns. The entire hillside is engulfed in flames, catalyzed by the wayward spark of a discarded match. “These hills burn every year, but we keep building houses on them, we keep planting flowers on them,” someone says, but when they look around there’s no one there. Winds carry the embers into tomorrow, smoke blocks out the sun. Music plays in the background.
“What are you doing?” “Writing something down, before I forget it.” “Will you tell me what it is?” “I can’t yet, not until it’s done.” “Even if you whisper it and I cover my ears?” “________________... did you get any of that?” “What!?” “You can uncover them now.” “I read your lips, you shouldn’t have agreed to that, now I know your secret.”
Everything laid bare, their clothes strewn all over the room. Sex closes whatever distance was left between them. Between that first awkward smile and the final guttural moan: a series of collisions and acrobatic displays of desperation, lust, love. They intuit symbiosis. It’s all happening at the same time, a single moment bending itself around the gravity of their embrace.
What will you think when you read this? I hope you find it endearing, I hope it quells your doubt, I hope you don’t find it cliché or cringe or overbearing. Not even death will erase the memory of the night you told me those songs you wrote were for me. Here is my response, at least a small part of it. •
![]()
![]()
Sergio Brito lives in Los Angeles with Elizabeth and Felix. You can find his work in Burial Magazine, Michigan City Review, Gonzoid, and others.
Twitter
She saw him in the glow of her window. She opened it and invited the breeze. He left before she caught a glimpse. Days later, he came back to her window. She opened the door to her room and he stepped inside.
She strums her guitar for him to the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore. He buries his feet in the sand, wriggling his toes in the cool grit. A gull watches them, a side eye, waiting for an opportune moment. He feeds her while she plays: what does he feed her? whatever it is the gull wants to steal it. A few wingbeats and a rush at his hand. The gull leaves with their meal in its mouth; they laugh.
Strange to fictionalize a life whose veracity isn’t yet solidified, as if its goodness prevents it from crossing the threshold into confirmed reality. A danger, once mythologized it will never be true. Prove it to the genie who granted you this life [yourself(?)] that you never deserved it. A poem the poet never wrote.
Ice cream melts down the waffle cone, onto their fingers, now sticky with its sweetness. Their tongues have tasted it all. Now, the frozen treat; earlier, the salt from the ocean stuck to each other’s bodies.
They play a game called “Dangerous Jumping,” a relic from her childhood. She explains to him the rules and soothes his doubts. They climb the face of the stone at the edge of the beach, the beach together. Wrinkled finger clasp onto nooks carved into the eroded monolith, markers of an ongoing romance. They climb and climb and climb and climb, far beyond the point they had imagined. The stone and their climb continue until they touch cloud, its moisture coating their next hold. Both slip and freefall into the cerulean sea.
She came home with a thorn in her side the size of her index finger. Using a scalpel, an incisor, a promise, he carved it out and placed it under his microscope and ascertained its origin; it wasn’t a thorn but a stem. He asked her to tear it in half and make a wish and she cried tears of joy. A wish spoken out loud is a wish that goes unfulfilled so she kept it to herself.
We go to Mexico together, her second time in the country, to get our teeth cleaned by my childhood dentist. I think about writing this while I’m out in the waiting room, alone in a white concrete box on an uncomfortable chair, my gums covered in blood. She steps out and smiles: a bloody grin.
They slept facing away from each other. Every waking hour they shared with one another, but the hours of dreams they kept to themselves. She dreamt of him; he dreamt of standing at the edge of a Sulphur pool, in the distance a trumpeting geyser. Sometimes he had nightmares, vicious, unspeakable nightmares. To calm his nerves, he listened to her babble in her sleep. On occasion, she spoke directly to him. “Was just thinking of how much I love you…” she told him once with her eyes closed. “Do you remember what you said to me last night?” he asked the following morning, but she shook her head.
They wash up on the shore of a different world. Beyond the highway that snakes down the coast, a field of sunflowers burns. The entire hillside is engulfed in flames, catalyzed by the wayward spark of a discarded match. “These hills burn every year, but we keep building houses on them, we keep planting flowers on them,” someone says, but when they look around there’s no one there. Winds carry the embers into tomorrow, smoke blocks out the sun. Music plays in the background.
“What are you doing?” “Writing something down, before I forget it.” “Will you tell me what it is?” “I can’t yet, not until it’s done.” “Even if you whisper it and I cover my ears?” “________________... did you get any of that?” “What!?” “You can uncover them now.” “I read your lips, you shouldn’t have agreed to that, now I know your secret.”
Everything laid bare, their clothes strewn all over the room. Sex closes whatever distance was left between them. Between that first awkward smile and the final guttural moan: a series of collisions and acrobatic displays of desperation, lust, love. They intuit symbiosis. It’s all happening at the same time, a single moment bending itself around the gravity of their embrace.
What will you think when you read this? I hope you find it endearing, I hope it quells your doubt, I hope you don’t find it cliché or cringe or overbearing. Not even death will erase the memory of the night you told me those songs you wrote were for me. Here is my response, at least a small part of it. •
Sergio Brito lives in Los Angeles with Elizabeth and Felix. You can find his work in Burial Magazine, Michigan City Review, Gonzoid, and others.