Ethiopian sunrises are very beautiful, it would appear.

I feel like I am always in Addis
but I've yet to have seen it in the daylight.
Arriving in darkness was no different from the norm,
but I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised by this morning's offering.

Addis appears to be surrounded by peculiar bunches of mountains
that pile up on top of one another.
The dark blue has slowly been replaced by sky,
then yellow,
then pink,
then grey,
then mountain bunch.

I didn't sleep much on the plane.
From about Greece it felt like an age since I had last seen Irish soil.
Why is that?
What is it about travelling that allows time and space to become so closely tethered to one another? It's been barely twelve hours since
I left Sasha, Mum, and Dad in Dublin but it may as well be a year.
I can only hope that this feeling does not overtake me
come the 28th April.
I don't want to have to desperately cling on to the memories of Kiwoko
as they are eroded by the aeroplane's slipstream.

The mountains are getting clearer now.
Varying hues of blue and grey imposed on the horizon.
Off to the East the sky is burning with morning
through thick, white terminal lattice.

There's an impossible to miss radiance
scorching the jagged edge of this Eastern range,
yet it lingers almost imperceptible from the surrounding sky -
as if everything Eastwards is ablaze.

Nighttime sounds different here.
The birds sing.
The bugs hum.
From the other side of town comes the beating of some thumping, bumping drum.

Every night feels the same:
Birds sing,
Bugs hum,
From the other side of town comes the beating of some thumping, bumping drum.

At five o'clock the faithful are woken and told to face North, to a city far away.
While for us, we lie prostrate in our beds and turn towards that great black shadow of routine, broken sleep.

We sat on that old pier,
as the others crab-fished by.
I found my hands beneath me,
in an attempt to keep them dry.

I traced the outline of a mountain range
with my tired, tearful eyes,
and the sun pinned me to the concrete wall,
stripping me of any disguise.

The fresh wounds on my shoulder
still oozed their precious blood,
yet we talked of days still to come
and summers, oh so far ahead.

Yet for a moment I almost believed that
what I’d done had been undone
but you struck me with reality
and my walls came tumbling down.

We looked at each other,
in the wild, unsettling sun,
with the sea-surf sparkling blue
and voices of our distant friends

ringing of the new
and interesting discovery that one crab, no, two,
had broken through the green net -
maybe that was you.

I know you're hurting, sweetie, and it's breaking my heart. I keep seeing all these horrible things in my sleep and it's scaring me.
I want to tell you so much, but I'm afraid I'll hurt you again - and I cannot do that.

I wanted to **** myself, and I don't know how I'll tell anyone that, let alone my best friend. I prayed for the end; I knew how I was going to do it: and then an angel showed up.

There are moments when it feels like it's better, but sometimes, they hurt the most, because they are so fleeting.
I don't know if it'll ever get better, darling, but sleep tight, you hear?
Sleep...

Don't you go worrying about me, I'll be fine. It's probably just a phase. I'll be fine in a few weeks, or a month, or a year.
Chin up, darling, you're doing great.

I struggle to breathe when I think about my actions.
I struggle to feel what my heart wants to feel.
I plot my own demise and think how best to word it.
Because sometimes my only gift seems to be my absence.

I give by taking away.
And it cuts me.

They wouldn't really mind - not for long anyway.
It's all just a mist, right? A vapour?
But I've got to get up every morning - regardless of my desires - because I'm still too scared to let go.
And if my gift is Absence, then I pray it happens quickly.

I stole your smile.
It used to sit right between your lips, remember?

It tasted like home.
It used to fill my dark mornings, remember?

It looked like love.

It used to tell me why it loved me.
It used to crack your face in two.
It used to show up when I did.
But nowadays, I only ever see it go.

Of all the crimes that I've committed,
there is one I detest the most.
Because where once it sparked a fire
within me, now it's just another ghost.