today, i read our favourite book for the first time since you left me

i fiddled with the little edges of each page as i imagined the creases of our palms that once caressed it with a passion almost unknown to the world. how together, our fingertips caused friction between the prologue and epilogue that united our beginnings with endings so fervently. then, i remembered september 17:

when you told me to look out into the distance with my eyes closed tight to search deep within me so that when i opened my eyes, the image of you would be all that i kept inside from then on. when i opened my eyes, however, those brown eyes, black hair and chapped lips showed me the light amidst our darkness and clearance in the mist that we had pathetically created for ourselves.  it showed me the undeserving being that i had moulded, my own protagonist that i played as you fell in love with my facade and wall of escape.

you had fallen in love with a fool. a fool who read too deep between the lines and connected too many dots to form constellations that were unthought of. one that drank too much coffee and stayed up to form rivers and blood banks that could traumatise even the toughest man on earth. one who tried to stand in the middle of the road when the red man went on while the green man took his break.
one who let you go like a helium balloon liberated from tiny hands while you stood firm on cementless ground. one who ultimately failed to love you right, when love was all you needed.

and as i read those pages that bounded our heartstrings together, the idea of lost love and dog-earred arguments smacked me right in the face where your image had remained engrained. and as i stood alone in the alleyway where we had laid our remains, i replayed the way you left me that saturday and fell deep into the underground to suffocate, this time never to return.