i waved goodbye to her for the last time this morning. i waited all night for her to wake. she was brighter than normal, and smiled through contagious yawns. i felt sadder than i thought i’d be. after all these early mornings practising what i’d say, again and again, round and round, like her eternal beauty. though now i was a coward. i turned from her, peeling away like unloved bodies from one another. i’d neglected her. something she’d never imagine. she always woke with me, and fell asleep next to me. sometimes she’d fall asleep first, and i’d watch this new side of her that awoke. i felt like she were mine. that she was placed here to provide me with light. night and day. but now my age had met up with me. a catch-22. where mortality is too short, yet immortality far too lonesome and bleak. but she never showed this. today, she were as bright as ever. i felt her hand warm my back. she pulled me towards her. her hand now on my chest. i felt her throughout me. my fingers, tingling. my toes, electric. i felt like a fireplace providing a frost-bitten victim life. i knew it was my time. we had had our years together. watching her sunrise and sunsets. colours of orange, yellow, pink and blue. i waved goodbye to the sun for the last time this morning. the tangerine sun in a Turner sky. and she waved back.
i hide him down below. feel his anxiety and adrenaline. when those sirens ring. a marathon pulse. sometimes he tries to look. i push him back in. They don’t see him. a wanted man. yet not wanted by anyone. left to rot in the lost. daring not to show his true face. harboring a fugitive. that is myself.
where is everyone? are they hiding? or are they really gone? deserted. maybe they were never here. just you and this broken reality of solitude. there they are. no. only your shadow. casting tricks on your mind. projecting this way. then that way. forking like the serpent’s tongue. convincing you to steal the forbidden fruit. but you don’t like sweet things. no. you’d rather be the last man left. or the first to begin with. but. if you can’t recognise yourself. who’s left to trust?
sometimes i feel so alone, i lay on my bed and stare up at the ceiling fan as it spins, and spins, and spins, and spins, it’s cold air brushing the hairs on my arms, now my head is going around, and around, and around, and around, and it won’t stop, i feel over to his empty space, and the hairs on my arms stand at attention, what’s the point of a double bed when you’re the only one there?, left to hug the reminiscence of nothing, just you and the loneliness of loneliness, and this empty feeling that arises again, and again, and again, and again, and that coldness that brushed your arms, gooseflesh.
The rain felt acidic as it fell. Though I think it were just the day’s humidity. I’d been out now, for some time, waiting for Vanni and Patrick. They were still changing into their costumes as I lodged myself between the front door and porch. I was eager to start the night. The drinks, the music, the girls. Halloween could never be missed. But my friends were taking too long. My skeletal frame, who ironically was dressed as a skeleton, wouldn’t last much longer as a door stopper. My feet began to shift as the wind became a bully. Then the door shut behind me and I was locked out of the house. Banished into the sour rain. I banged on the door. Cursed at my idiot friends. Then felt colder. Though it wasn’t because I were now soaking wet. Rather it was him. Him staring at me. White Caroline button eyes. Matching pale skin. A hunchback of insecurity. He was the creepiest thing I’d seen all night. But the butterfly that found refuge on his hand hadn’t cared, rather thanked him for his shelter. Then he smiled at me, and offered his umbrella to share.
He won’t stop staring at me. His eyes are always fixed. Always beady and white. Ants crawl on his face, spreading as freckles that nest on his cheeks. His skin becomes paler each day, housing a tinge of silver and shine. He’s always there no matter where I stand. To the left, then to the right, he follows my every step. He takes no breaks in the day, though sleeps long in the night. The darkness scares him away. I would lay awake, savouring my alone time. But then the sun would wave her hello and he was back again. Staring at the edge of my bed. Wake up! Wake up! He yells. I close my eyes to escape him. Though years later he’s still here. Staring right back at me. I will never escape him. He always finds a way. The bathroom mirror. The street window. The laptop screen. Staring. Sometimes I wish I were blind. Or nocturnal at least.
There’s something strange about silence. They call it deafening, though it has no voice. They long for it, yet it brings such loneliness. But if you ask me, this silence is everything. I close my eyes and envision it’s nothingness like a meadow, wild and endless. I feel it’s empty whispers tickle my ears as I lay on overgrown green. My hand, twisting and pulling at roots. I scratch my skin on the back of crystallised rocks. My chest rises, and deflates again. Though I can’t hear my ballooning lungs. I can’t hear wind bully grass and trees with it’s aggressive push. I can only hear the silence, and how it’s everything but sound.
