One Beautiful Thing

The street lights bounced up and down before my eyes as they entangled with darkness of the night. Within my hands I carried you silently as we melted together into the streets.

I wondered what time it was? Was it today, or yesterday. Was it a year ago? It was just One day, I woke up with my watch broken down; I never got to fix it though, it was that one day when I discovered you grew within me to forever invade my alones. I hated you then, hated you with all the hatred my heart had been capable of. Then, I was too weak to hate you, so helplessly felt you in my body. That was the day I forever lost sense of time.

I sat on the sidewalk. Where to go? I had already shuffled through the places but a stinging pain within my chest told me all the doors were closed. I thought of many names; every name I’d known and beyond each face, there was a memory that bloomed within my heart and somehow the feeling of those past days brushed upon me. I smiled. Once, I smiled. My eyes fell on you and that smile froze, like the very fact of you in here killed away all my happiness, like you drew  a barrier between now and whoever I was before you came.

That night they got you out of me, you almost killed me. But I didn’t give a damn, you’d kill me anyway, I thought. Maybe when I decided to  hate you, it was me that I should’ve hated. None of that would make any difference…which left me wondering, is it soothing that feeling of letting go, or did it only hurt to know you’ve left something behind. You were that point of gravity standing at the heart of my life, and no matter how many years separated our departure, you always attracted regret to engulf the memory of you.

I sat on a sidewalk. Your eyes slowly opened for me to look at them and see they were mine. You even stole the only thing beautiful about my face. You saw me and went on crying. I rocked you but then you started a strain of screams. I rocked you again and you wouldn’t stop.

“Shut up,” I yelled, “just shut up!”

You screamed.

“Oh please  stop”

I too cried.

“Stop. Stop. Stop!”

But you wouldn’t stop.

You wouldn’t stop.

I then threw you on the sidewalk and ran away from your taunting voice not giving myself a second chance to see your face again. It might’ve changed everything.

I never had any babies again. And every time I pressed my hands against my tummy, I felt  the emptiness of my womb creating a shield around my life rendering it too empty. I loved you now. I missed you and hung on you every hope that my life should once again have a hint of a meaning. Maybe it was because you were unattainable.

Few days later, I came back asking for you. It wasn’t hard to inquire about the poor newborn baby who was left alone crying by a heartless mother. I learnt that someone picked you up and drove you to an orphanage and few weeks later, you were picked up by a family.

I saw you again. You were all theirs.

But you still had my eyes,

The only beautiful thing about me.

Would you forgive me?