Lazed beneath the sycamore,
we laid upon the forest floor
amidst the myriad hues of leaves,
so picturesque in reverie.

As we basked within the shade
we'd reminisce our latter days.
Our dream come true in years to come
with hope our threads of fate stay spun.

Kiss me here, oh darling dear;
that's what you'd whisper in my ear.
You'd draw me close into your soul;
not once could I resist your pull.

We'd traipse the earth between the trees;
forever yours I thought I'd be,
until the day that you weren't there...
until the day that you weren't there.

And just like you, the leaves were gone;
not one lone branch did they lay upon.
Our footsteps where we once had walked
now cloaked beneath a sheet of frost.

And from the sky poured shades of gray;
the sun will hide to mark this day.
I'll be right here, oh darling dear;
that's what you'd whisper in my ear.

Our dream come true had turned to naught,
just as our tree had fell to rot.
Now there's nothing left to find,
save for the memories left behind.

Razed beneath the sycamore,
I wrest my soul forevermore.
Our cherished past runs 'cross my eyes,
and dies within my own demise.

They said she suffered from visions, so
They locked her up in her room,
I heard her pacing the floor in there
To softly cry in the gloom,
Her food they slid in under the door
And that’s when I heard her shout:
‘You can’t keep me forever in here,
You must let my nightmares out!’

But a doctor listened outside the door
And shook his head as he went,
A Priest then wafted some incense in
And muttered a sacrament,
But no-one dared to unlock the door
For they’d heard a howl within,
‘She must be conjuring demons there
Or some terrible type of sin.’

At night when everyone was asleep
I’d put my head to the floor,
And whisper low to my sister through
The gap, just under the door.
‘Go find the key,’ she would say to me,
‘And unlock the door in the night,
We’ll creep on out while the house is still,
Take off while the Moon is bright.’

I didn’t know where to find the key,
I didn’t know where it was,
It wasn’t hung up on the kitchen hook
Or the nail in the wooden cross.
She begged me, ‘Keep on looking for it,
It’s the only chance for me,
Then we will be together again
At last, and finally free!’

But then her visions returned again
And lights shone under the door,
While sounds, like animals caught in pain
Built up to a sullen roar.
I whispered, ‘Sis, can you hear me now,
I’m scared,’ and started to bawl,
She cried, ‘There’s lights and a million things
All creeping out of the wall.’

I went to beat on our parent’s door
But I heard my father snore,
I ran downstairs and I found the key
They’d hid in the bureau drawer.
I hesitated before I turned
The key in my sister’s lock,
The door swung open and lay ajar
As I stood, stock-still in shock.

For in the room was a wooded glade
With creepers clogging the walls,
Bats were hung from the old lampshade,
The bed was a waterfall,
But of my sister, never a sign
She must have been lost in the trees,
But monsters struggled out of the wall
As I fell in dread to my knees.

They say I suffer from visions, so
They’ve locked me up in my room,
I couldn’t cope with my sister’s loss
They said, but she’s in a tomb.
I know she’s not, for I hear her whisper
Under the door at night,
‘We’ll creep on out while the house is still,
Take off while the Moon is bright.’

Then sounds, like animals caught in pain
Build up to a sullen roar,
I call for her, again and again,
‘Just get the key to the door.’
But then she fades, and she slips away,
So far that I have to shout:
‘You can’t keep me forever in here,
You must let my nightmares out!’

David Lewis Paget

She'd swooshed by on her skates.
He'd seen her in her reflection that day
On his car’s rear view mirror,
For the first time ever.
The new neighbour, was she?

That very night, for the first time ever,
Both happened to be on their respective rooftops.
The clock had just scaled eleven.
Now that they’d seen each other,
Tonight's coincidence sufficed to make way
For a rendezvous every night, thereafter.

He’d often be smiling his sheepish smile,
Panting for breath as he’d reach the terrace
While the clock would strike eleven,
A few heartbeats later.
Oh, but she would often already be there,
A teasing laughter on her lips,
A childlike smile in her eyes.
Relief followed by exultation in his heart.

And so, they’d be standing a lane's length apart,
United under the zoetic starry sky, every night hence.

You’d wonder, how both were somehow convinced,
That the other still believed
This nightly tryst
Under the sky's roof to be a coincidence.

She'd light cigarette after another.
He'd pretend
To be caressing his pet,
Fast asleep.
Or some such silly thing.

How he’d wish the whiff of smoke from her cigarette
Would drift across to his terrace.
He’d imagine the wafting smoke
That’d emanate as she’d part her lips
To be a peek into her coy desires.
And many such cheesy things.

They hadn't exchanged a word till date.
Oh but they'd exchanged hearts that very first night.
She didn't even know his name yet
She'd wonder if he knew hers’?
'Has it ever mattered?' she'd think.
'I'm better off not knowing her name!'
Thinking a name could define her
Is to be silly', he’d think.

She was at his door one evening,
To hand over a letter,
Mistakenly delivered at her home.
Or so she said. Something he'd happily believed.
She'd slipped her heart along with the letter,
She later happily realized.

The ensuing night lingered
Six and a half cigarettes longer,
The first time ever.

Fifteen evenings gone by since
She wouldn’t be seen.
He stayed for a brief bit on the sixteenth night.
Disappointed less, worried more.
Did she feel this silent encounter
Of their worlds had stayed silent too long?
Words could never suffice, didn't she know?
He went down to his room ruefully.
Oh but she’d reached just the terrace at that instant.

And they thought coincidences could only always favor them.

A few evenings later he saw her.
Not veiled by the sepia-tinted street lights this time.
Nor in the crimson blush of that evening.
Decked in bridal finery
The vermilion vows on her forehead
Staring starkly at him like an exclamation mark.

And you thought coincidences could only always favor us,
Seemed to be the rhetoric she was throwing at him.

That night, his tattered heart
Writhed in dead wakefulness on the rooftop.
Even now, he looks across
At her absence, a presence in itself.

[A conversation between Light and Darkness]

  Light said,
"We're adversaries, maybe.
But I've come to see the possibility
That you are my shadow after all."

Darkness dawned, and said,

"And I thought you could see everything,
For you were light yourself.
Am I merely a fear, of your and mankind's?
[They think you could have no fears, either.]
I am, Nature's nocturnal rhyme.
I exist, for you cannot make up for me.

An ever unraveling mystery,
I am humble, for I become
What the world makes of me.
You make the world see,
Little do they know,
They see the world
Through the colours You colour them in.
I make them face fears,
Away from illusion-ed complacency,
With my silent presence giving them company.
From mere empirical sight,
I have given rise to vision/ imagination in them."

Darkness continued -
"Oh, I am not here to seek pity.
I'm sure they wonder,
Why some-one like me,
Has existed as tenaciously as you.
I am not to be sought,
I am not light years away,
I am the recourse within.
Truly, I had underestimated myself for long."

Light flickered a little,
To glow anew in realization, then said-
"I am the spotlight,
You're the impactful dot.
I comprise the glorious endings,"
Darkness beamed and said,
"I am the prompt to the start.
Dawn and dusk are but a
Celebration of our synchronicity."

Light chipped in to continue,
"I begin to see things in a new light,
For I have acknowledged you,
And that is our victory."