World of Small Things

Drunk on the savour of the nightly bloom, I’m drawn deep into the settling fog. I don’t know where I am or how far I’ve strayed, but midnight feels farther than dawn. The wind has hummed itself to sleep, leaving an awkward silence in its wake. Now it’s just the echo of my hollow footsteps and the sweet scent of October in the air. Shattered blades of moonlight stab through the crevices in the clouds. As I walk through its dappled light, I fade in and out of existence, before a sudden flash of lightning carves right through my tepid daze.  But I do not bleed. My wooden flesh does not grow weary. Maybe my nerves of string are too tangled to tell. My blood once knew its way through the valleys of my skin, but now, it’s frozen still. Why can’t I burn at the gentlest kiss of light, in a million shades of amber like the autumn rain? Or blossom like these Alstonias, to greet every dull eve with ethereal grace? Will I ever be unwary as their flowers, surrendering to the will of every s...

This bridge to the bus stop knows my frenzied footsteps well. It’s a dance I do everyday.  But today it stares at me like a stranger, it’s never known me to halt midway.  Faces pass by in a flurry.  They all have someplace to be.  In its last breath the dying winter tells me, even January is making haste to leave.  Maybe even I should head home now, the sun is getting low. But I want to stand here and let life go by, I feel no need to hurry.  From its tinsel towers I’ve watched this city preen, on the ground I’ve heard its people scream.  But from this bridge I see life itself, in the river of tarmac and gasoline. For is this life not a highway, where stillness is met with death?  Where the soul is too nervous to look around, too wound up to take a breath? I know life is a highway, because it’s been mere moments since we met.  But before we can let ourselves be seen, you’re another memory to forget.   And though life is a wide open highw...