Those cold eyes pierce into me, blue like death, devoid of light, cruel.

“You can love me now.” Comes the bland voice. Like school walls painted grey, like a history book with tiny font and only little indents for new paragraphs, like sitting in silence for hours, that is the boredom his voice makes me feel.

As a child, I used to love my mama’s stories. When the day comes, she’d say, your heart swells and you feel like you’re floating on air. My heart did indeed swell, like a sponge in water, absorbing the boredom. I did feel like I was floating in air. As though my floating had gone wrong and I was falling.

My papa used to say, it’s the best day of your life. A whole world of colour is revealed. This world is as grey as before.

“What is wrong? Do you not feel it?”