Deception

The moon doesn't stay in shape. Occasionally eluded by the clouds that have camouflaged within the nightsky. They spread across the horizon, all the way from where it gathers light from the moon, till where it almost disappears, at the back where my eyes wouldn't reach. Lumps that come in different sizes. If they represent people I miss, I reckon you'd be the one right above me. The spot on the sky where my gaze shoots straight up and reach. You wanted to be free. Yet you longed to linger in a part of me, wishing you hadn't become like this. When I face you again I don't understand how you managed to pull through that state. Of desolation. Eyes incredibly earnest to fight yet on the flipside what grew deep into you was emptiness. Now the moon and clouds resemble the shadow of a ship that's sailing nowhere. Is that you? Crazy, is that what most people would label? In a place you lived on your own, like the strips of metal flanked by two bars right in front of me. Or the glass sphere that has turned too hostile and chosen to be coated with an inner shimmer. Too ready to take risks. To protect yourself. They are all joined up now, and they fill in the spot which was previously empty. Were you taken away? Too many reasons tell me you didn't have a choice. The mind is proven untrustworthy - you were obliterated as quickly as how a simple white adhesive would colour a blemish. As though even your shadow missed the beat of a heart. If you lose what's under your feet, you get to realise what you missed. And maybe between us, we'd find nothing but a shard of mirror.

Vacant

Down the dark hallway, I watched something glisten. I couldn't tell if they were angry tears or regrettably a sign of your exhaustion. I wanted so much to walk out that door and be freed from your lies. My lies. Instead I kept silent. I didn't want to break your heart. But more than that I was too terrified of leaving. I knew what you were capable of; Yet even what little I knew was only part of what I could have risked finding out. In your frustration you could have walked right up to my face and given it a punch. Easily. I never fought back because I hadn't the strength and courage. Instead you picked up the bin at the corner, raised it above your head and flew it down to the ground. Your face is filled with anguish, completely bent on having things your way. My body stiffened as I broke into tears. What else can I do? I just wasn't.....brave enough. In a quivering voice slightly lower than a whisper, I murmured something in compliance. If I kept up the front, you wouldn't have to scare me. In time to come I realised that either way, I'd never have had it any easier. What eventually left me with an ache was that I never mattered enough to even break your heart.

Someone extraodinary

Through the heavy lids of my eyes I watch you lazily. You place your arms on the cool marble and stretch your legs, your body ramrod straight, inclined at the same angle against the ground. I hear your voice gently calling my name. Completely harmless and of no haste; like how seashells softly crunch under the sole of my shoe.

I put on the socks before playing with the velcro. You lock the door behind me and I wait for the usual 'Let's go'. I wonder if that is a habit of yours that I have gotten used to. Four letters are inked onto the faded grey beneath our weight. Bad word, said you to me when I ask you what it reads. I do not know how to pronounce the peculiar vulgarity that I'm seeing for the first time, and in such big print.

I love our morning jogs like these. Across the road, up a slope onto the path with the green on my right. We stop by the fitness corner and I watch you do the monkey bars. You always urge me to try but my arms carry me past no less than three because I don't like my feet in the air.

When we walk back home you hold out a clenched fist. Show me the back of it. You teach me how to tell the number of days in a month by looking at my knuckles and each depression in between. I gawk at my hand in disbelief. You ask me the colours of the rainbow and I ponder my thoughts aloud. Fumbling by the time I reach the last finger. Richard of York gains battle in vain, this acronym you teach me. It wasn't until Physics that I recalled that this is ROYGBIV.

In the afternoon you bring out a bucket of water that foams with bubbles at the surface. I carry the heavy scrubs and we start cleaning the blemished grey we saw in the morning. Scrub all four letters, one by one. While watching the paint lose its initial starkness I think of why you are doing this. The stubborn black refuses to come off completely.

You're the first kindest man I met.