rain

walked past rows and rows of niches with photos of those long gone discoloured, in the place that time seemed to stand still. for those people, at least. immortalised within the niches, put to rest with two dates in red or gold, one when their life began, one when their lives ended.
looked at the niche of a baby sealed together with her mother's and wondered if her mother died of grief a few years after her child died at the age of 3. walked past the niche of a pair of twins who were born and died on exactly the same day. looked at the loving picture of a couple who died before they were 40. looked at the niche of a boy who died at 14 and wondered how many of the dead took their own lives.
saw the niche of a beautiful lady whom i remember died in a diving accident 7 years ago when i was still in JC.gorgeous she looked, even on the photo on her niche. what was left on her niche was a faded rose, droplets of water rising against the plastic wrapping, a testimony that she was missed. that someone perhaps dropped by on a hot and languid weekday afternoon, walked up alone to the 2nd storey of the row of niches in which she was placed, put a rose at her niche, stepped back, thought of her and her smile, her joy and laughter, her tears and pain, looked at her photo and tried to remember her full of life, but seven years on, that isn't easy. traced his fingers across the engravement of her name, perhaps. did a tear roll down his face? we shall never know.

***

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

***

it's like waiting for a sailor to return from sea, when the sea is turbulent and the skies are grey.

it's like waiting when you know waiting is in vain.

it's forbidden fruit.

and i wonder and dream about eyes, wet from rain and tears, droplets of water cogulating on a whisp of fringe.
your fringe.

***

you should fall. you should lose your balance. you should lose and have the taste of defeat. the sour taste of defeat accentuated by taste of tears seeping into the corners of your mouth as you desperately try to contain them and blink them away fiercely.
you should fall, you who have never fallen.
you the one in orange staring idly at the world going by, your feet in rubber slippers and you stare the the grey floor you trotted about as a child. the ants who weave around the floor in circles. you watch them idly, never noticing the girl on a bicycle.
you in orange. you the fidgety one. you the one i think of.