I held your hand as you floated away from the earth, leaving me alone. I slid my pain into my pocket and placed that old mask on my face. Nobody will see that again. The air is thick with loss and my guilt is like swallowing grit as I climb out of the hole I dug myself into. The world will never be the same again, the trees slump down, decaying slowly, just like all living organisms. We decay, our skin greys, and all that is left to say is goodbye. We lose and lose and lose until there is nothing left to lose bar ourselves, drifting on a plank of plywood waterlogged and with a shelf life that eventually means that the vast ocean of death will take us as casually as life gave us. We are not our own, this idea of possession and freedom is concepts only the human mind can foretell, concepts that don’t exist anywhere else. We cannot control where we go, if we go, and especially not when we go. We stick like glue to the things we think will save us, we are but caught flies stuck to webs - we will inevitably be consumed by something bigger and scarier than us. The sickly sweet scent of your blood lingering on my face and hands, and staining my clothes as you fade away. Your eyes are dark and all I see is the person I could’ve been if you had just stuck around a little longer. You gave up, and for that I blame you, but for everything else I blame myself and I blame the world. Forgiveness will never be attained because yours is the only I desire, and now even that is lost in this world and the next. Who knows when and if we will meet next. We pass like clouds on a windy day, we are perceived but not appreciated until we leave. Our tears fall just as rain does and it is just as inconvenient for everyone else but ourselves. We leave puddles of pain around our lives waiting for someone to step through it, or for the sunshine to finally make its appearance and dry away all the flooding caused. Leaves fall one by one, and I am reminded of you, as you fell. Just like in autumn, your colour faded and you were not the vibrant love I used to know. You had been dried out of your passion and life, now just a decaying shell splayed out on the ground for someone to find and clean away. The busy roads above us conceals the brief sobs I endure as I turn away from you one final time. The grime under my fingernails today reminds me of the times we’d go digging for treasure as children, and I suddenly think of all the reasons you were smarter, stronger, better than I will ever be. Why was it you who had to go? The world would have been better off if it had been me. Your bright beauty and intense intellect would have added to the world a force that couldn’t be bested. You were a genius if I’d ever seen one. You were a natural leader like you were born to be the head of the flock leading the rest of us to warmer grounds during the winter seasons. And yet here I stood, in your place, clueless of what to do - where to go - next. My heart pounds against my chest as I step further and further away; evidence that I can live on without you, but I do not want to. All I can think of is how lovely it would be to hear your laugh again and to see you smile as the wind dances with our hair and the night starts to settle in. I never thought it would be me who walked away first, me who was the last man standing, me who shut the lid on your box. My pain blazes brightly like a shooting star in the clearest of skies - people see it and adore its beauty, but would avoid contact with it as they know how it could hurt them too. You were always the one who held on for dear life, burning your hands from holding on for so long that when you finally let go, your skin was red raw, peeling at the tips of your fingers, and all you said was “I’m glad you’re better now”.

The great gasping ravine echoed my every breath and the huffing of the steed that heroically carried me. Both hunger and night were settling in swiftly and the rainbow of the sunset revealed its secrets to me in a way no one else could admire. My bones ached, furiously dragging me further and further after each step my strong Helios took towards the destination. I hollered for him to stop and to turn in for the night, and before I slumped off his sturdy shoulders, I took a glance towards the blaze of the setting sun in the sky. A large rocky mountain loomed over menacingly, readying itself to drop boulders on us as soon as the light dissipated and nobody could see or hear my agonising screams.

Though the boulders would’ve allowed me a fair excuse to cry out in pain. I waited patiently for one, two, three minutes before I realised the mountain was as steady as my horse; it was determined to stand tall and keep all its stones to itself.

In a sense it was like me - solid, strong, independent, quiet, secretive, alone. It kept to itself, not interrupting or bothering anyone who passed by. Looking up at the monstrous rock, I imagined myself in its place, large and isolated from the rest of the world. How peacefully lonely it is.

The isolation does get to you eventually, and sometimes the smaller pebbles drop down, for someone to see or hear. It’s never enough to concern them or show them how much pressure is holding the rest of you together, but they see it nonetheless. It’s enough for them to understand there’s more to you than what you allow them to see, your innards may be hidden but they know they’re there - just not what they look like.

That’s the whole purpose of a soul isn’t it? A hidden piece of you that very few will understand and even less will see for themselves. Helios huffed loudly and I found myself slipping from the saddle, landing on the Sandy ground, offered him a reassuring pat, as if to tell him we could rest for the night.

He immediately rested down where he stood, nuzzling his head into the palm of my hand. He thanked me for the break. I sit next to him, leaning against him slightly and feel myself dozing off to the sound of his steady breathing in my ear and the warmth of his body against my back. Sleep never came so easily as it did tonight, and as I thought once more of the rocky mountain, I remembered how each stone leant on each other to maintain that sturdiness.

I am not an overly suspicious person, not at all. Not like my brother was. He always believed that the worst was yet to come, that there was some sourly fated event just around the corner of every street and down every dark alleyway. Our mother always said that he would never leave the nest, fly away and make his own one day. He was 25 and still seeking consolation in the wafting incense of our mothers superstitions. Our father, a grumping old thud of a man, worked every day of his life, for 10 hours a day, since he was 15 years old - as he likes to repeat at least seven times a day. He was so close to retirement but showed no signs of interest in going on holidays and doing jigsaws with us. My mother was the opposite - an artist and a stay at home mother. She was flowy, angelic and maybe even a little too supportive. She always said my brother was special, in his own way of course, and that we couldn’t expect of him what we expect of ourselves because he will never live up to that. It was always her way of being nice about the fact that he was completely incompetent.

He held no secrets, his life was no mystery. He was a creature of habit. He liked it that way. And so when he came bursting through the front door, panting heavily as he launched his backpack across the room then bolted the door closed, I was immediately concerned - for his sanity mind you. He muttered aimlessly to himself, pacing back and forth, and then suddenly stormed through to the kitchen, where I heard the bolting of the door that lead into our backyard.

I had queried about his behaviour, and he drove into an endless rant about how he noticed that at the corner store between the college and the station, a strange figure was watching him as he crossed the road to reach his bus. He had proceeded into his suspicions of being tracked and followed and stalked, and at one point he raved about how he knew that this would happen because how could it not? I attempted to calm him but he raced away up the stairs, not before scooping up his backpack, and slammed his bedroom door closed. He was in there for hours, refusing to come down for tea. From his room we heard rattling and bumping, as if things were falling or he was throwing things. Our mother had floated up there to check in and offer one of his favourite after-tea snacks. He refused. Next, I climbed up and chatted on his door, lingering, and told him that if he wanted to sit with me and play a game, we could do that. He retorted back with a ‘not now’. It had reached the later evening, and we were all still waiting anxiously for my brother to behave like his usual self again - but he never returned. My father sauntered up at the back of 9, chapping his door a total of three times before pushing the door open and finding my brother's bedroom entirely abandoned. He hollered for us to join him at the door frame, where we found his room disheveled as if there had been a storm that hit only this room.

The window was wide open, the night time breeze giving life to the curtains and the sound of a faraway neighbour's dog howling at the fullness of the moon. There was no note, no indication of where he had gone. Did he leave voluntarily or was he taken?

My mother had called the authorities quickly after our discovery, and for weeks after she isolated herself in her bed, refusing visitors and conversation. My father rarely slept and waited by the door on the stern lounge chair, prepared to welcome back his only child. Months had passed, nothing had changed. He was still gone, no sign, no clues. It was like he had just ceased to exist. Except that wasn’t entirely true. When I took the shortcut home one day, I heard a voice call out for me. When I turned around curiously, I saw his face, battered and bruised, almost unrecognisable. He looked older and harder and all he had to say was two words, with a faint nostalgic smile, “my sister”.

Here we are again, Growing. We thought we couldn’t, Wouldn’t, Shouldn’t, But we did. It’s magical, really. Even Though we struggle through the Harsh storms, And oftentimes burn During the fiery summers, We still return and grow. Wounds heal, and what’s left Are scars that remind us of Our troubles. We can choose to hover Aimless over those scars, Picking at them, Reopening the wounds of the past, Or we can allow them to heal and Leave them, only paying them Attention when we wish to look back And learn From the decisions we made before. We grow, Like flowers, Each year. Flowers grow seasonally, And in a sense, so do we. But there is no set time On how fast we process and proceed. So take your time, And maybe you’ll hear the Newborn lambs Chattering outside the next time You decide to look In the fields In Spring

Day by day we ruin our home, Our place of living; The place that took us in; The place that lets us breathe; The place that understands us most. Day by day we continue To fill the world up with gas and pollution, We continue to make our home Our possession. We do not own this world, We have no right to say we do. We are merely inhabitants, Renters, Adopted by the world And allowed to live. But we should not be abusing Our Mother Nature The way we do. We should be appreciating and loving her Just as we do our own mothers. We still have a chance to make things right, To undo our bad bloods, To retrace the steps of our ancestors. We still have time to start again, To begin afresh.