Sickness

The growls come, each more lengthy, needy than the next. But they're not as persuasive as they'd like. That feral begging falls on deaf ears as it fades away into the night. There's something oddly sympathetic about it, something pleading - a cry that arises the need or want to comfort. But it isn't enough. Again, the growls fail but still they come.

It's the emptiness that's sickening, rising and falling like a tide on a stormy night. But still, there's a will that beats against it, a will with no reason, no justification, not even a little bit of sense - but it's there and it's enough. It's a strange dilemma, a subtle sickness, far beyond any logical understanding.

Don't ask, it won't answer. It's not that easy, it's not as simple as a black and white photo of a lone, leaveless tree.

Some call it the sickness worth having.

It's not.

Birthday

Today, it's your birthday. And I'm thinking of you. Or rather the absence of you; the hole that, until recently, had gone unnoticed. It doesn't hit hard or even often and when it does I am struck with confusion rather than a dull hurt and bruise. But I don't ask why, I don't seek never-coming answers. My eyes don't cloud and showers do not pour from them. I do not miss you.

But still, it aches. A small ache, barely bigger than a five pence piece. Barely noticeable after it has landed, spun, toppled and found a place to rest. I can barely feel it if I don't go looking. But it's there.

You're not gone but you're not here either. You swing between - an indecisive child with an unknowingly cruel mind, picking on ants and next keeping them as pets, oblivious to the damage caused unless someone tells you. But they won't. I am the ant to your magnifying glass, to your ant farm filled with sand.

There's guilt there, between the cracks and tunnels, like the ant that got away. Being wrong, in the wrong. It's not your fault, they'd say as they cling to what little they know. But then the question would come. Then whose? Silence or hapless blame. An answer crafted with lies to cover up what isn't known. And I'd be back there, wondering, wandering. Waiting for your glass or farm to come again, trying to guess which it will be.

And it will repeat.

I'm thinking of you, for the the first time in eons, it seems. And it's your birthday. And I don't know if I miss you.

Envelope

It sits there, the table, mocking me. Smiling silkily at me and begging me to approach it, pick it up and look inside. But I can't. And it knows. It knows and yet it still begs and calls come closer, come closer... in its all too seductive tone. A wicked creature, it is, luring and lulling my hand.

But, there's a higher power, a loyalty to keep. My hand is stayed. It still screams its pleading words and sends it's sugar-sweet lust my way. It wants to be open, to be seen, to be freed. But I wait. I wait until that word comes floating into my periphery and into my mind and then, only then, will I given to its cacophonous coos of come closer, pick me up and give me life...