5. The Boy on The Roof

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When the world felt too loud, too harsh, too disappointed in him,

he climbed onto the roof.

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Up there, he could watch life from a safe distance,

untouchable, unreachable, hovering above the noise.

 

No one asked anything of him.

No one criticised.

No one expected.

No one dismissed.

No one left.

 

On the roof, he controlled the closeness.

People were small from up there;

their judgement even smaller.

 

He grew older,

and the roof grew with him.

 

Now the roof looks like silence, like solitude,

like disappearing just when he is needed most.

 

He still looks for the roof,

his heart crawls upward inside him the moment love knocks too loudly.

 

Up there he convinces himself he is strong, self-reliant, untamed.

But it is not strength that keeps him on the roof.

 

From the roof, he can see all the women trying to reach him.

But he never sees the hurt on their faces as he pulls the ladder up behind him.​