The Boy And The Flood
The boy awoke to the sound of rain as it pelted the roof of the workshop. There was a howling in the air as winds battered the walls. The door to the building rattled back and forth on its weathered hinges and the boy prayed that it would hold for the night. He shivered and squirmed deeper into his nest of blankets and rags, scrounging for the remnants of warmth within them. He opened his eyes, though it served little purpose. It was still nighttime and the night was always darker than any shadows or voids he could possibly dream of. Opened or closed, he was blind to the world.
During the day, he had found dried, crusted cloths stained black with oil hidden inside one of the large metal cabinets. He used the cloths and twigs he had gathered from outside and built a tiny fire using one of his matches. He had watched the thin wisps of smoke rise and seep through the vents mounted high on the walls and eventually fell asleep to the sound of the crackling flames.
The fire had died some hours ago and now he sat in the cold and the quiet. It was so dark that he could barely see his hand when held inches from his face. The outlines of cabinets, shelves, tools and the shell of an old car could barely be seen, fuzzy and not quite there as if some glaucoma had dimmed what little of the world remained.
With the fire gone, the cold clawed at his skin. The boy curled into a ball and pulled the rags tightly over him. His cheeks and hands were raw and the back of his throat froze with every breath. With no fire, he feared he might die.
The sound of the rain and wind outside had grown violent with the booms of thunder claps as if God himself had come to rage upon the ashes and wash them all away.
He began to hum a tune to himself, although where he had heard it and what the lyrics were, he did not know. It always calmed him. It was the only song he knew and it reminded him of different days – better days. Ones he wished he could grab the memory of and relive.
An hour passed and still the boy lay wide awake, shivering in the cold. He could feel hunger rising within, biting him with the teeth of a starved beast. He had bottled water and cans of old soda, but no food left. He could go many hours without food these days, but it had now been a full day since he last ate. The taste of the canned broth still rested on his tongue and his stomach groaned in remembrance of it. The pain of hunger was something he had grown accustomed to, but it was often still enough to keep him awake at night and even when he slept through it the hunger visited him in dreams.
The rain continued to fall. Sometimes the sound of it would lull him to sleep, but on nights where the storms were especially bad, on nights like this, he’d lie huddled in a corner, frightened that it would slip under the door and drown him and everything else in the room. It could rain for days. The world would flood and overnight it would transform itself into an impassable bog of sludge and black ice. The boy couldn’t even drink from the puddles because it would burn his gums whenever he tried, as if the sky had cried acid.
When it last rained, the boy had been trapped inside an abandoned block of flats. The rain had fallen for only three days, but he remained stranded for an entire week as the water gradually dissipated enough for him to move on. He had survived on what little food and drink he had left, and on the rats that scurried up and down the halls.
The boy hoped the rain would stop soon. There weren't any rats here. Only strange tools and metal cabinets.
Again, he hummed the tune he didn’t know. The nameless song that so often replaced the grey of the world with colour. He hummed it to himself and to the dark of the night and hoped that one day it would hum back.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of the better days. He sang the tune in his head and tried to remember the words. He tried to ignore his hunger; he tried to ignore that he was cold and alone in a world of no one and he tried his best not to cry.
The earth shook with thunder once again and he felt an icy wetness seep into his blankets as the room began to flood.
All-nighter
There’s not enough time
And I’m getting so tired
My eyes are shot
The yawns won’t stop
I’m surrounded by books
But I can’t take a look
I have too much caffeine
If you know what I mean
Oh, when will it end
Going round the bend?
Exams – OH NO!
But ahead I must go
Brain in overdrive
Pencils by my side
The clock tick tocks
And I feel a block
But finally – escape!
And let the rest wait
It’s over, for now
Fall asleep on the bus
Then study again
To get that A+
#finalexams #poetry
Always There
I feel your love in
grains of warm sand
close to my skin,
see your love
in waves kissed
with foam flecks,
hear your love
in the breath
of wind caressing
my soul,
taste your love -
salty brine
on your skin,
smell your love
in your raw
musky scent,
know your love
without you uttering
a single word,
understand your love
because I save it -
little nosegays
to give back
to you
for whenever
you need me
if I am
not there.
The Past Is What We Leave
The only thing that I can feel
is the silence on your tongue
as you try to find oceans in faucets
and excuses in dust-filled lungs.
And I hate the way the stars look
when I know you’re looking too,
the stars that I have always thought
felt closer to home than you.
And I hate the way the rain sounds,
and I know you hate it too.
And I hate the way I can’t forget
how much I hate hating you.
But you do not have to say you’re sorry,
though I know you think you do,
because the past is what we grieve and hate,
but it is what we leave too.
