I seem to be getting quite lazy these days, in that I don't seem to make as much effort as I'd like to, firstly, rhyme, but also to try to go above the pithy expression of thought. I think being succinct can be very good and very effective, but it has to be done right. And as always, after staring at something for too long, I lose my sense of whether it works or it doesn't, and instead just have a nagging sense that there is a lot of room for improvement. What happens invariably is that I memorize the piece, and so slight deviations from it are frowned upon because I've already built up my own way of reciting it, and it is usually very opposed to being changed, even slightly!

---

Words muttered,
Shielded by solid glass
They did not hurt as much
As the eyes that pierced through
Telling me, like nothing else could,
"You do not belong".

Ten years ago, I never knew what you looked like. When someone told me it was you, that it was really you, I will admit that I stared long into your face in the disance. But please see nothing more in that than what it was - I was just trying to see traces of the things you had said, to find them embedded in your eyes, your hair, your bemused smile. It seemed impossible that you were the one who said those magical things, the one who proved that heaven was within our grasp. I never imagined that there was a face behind those things; you were always like a spirit drifting around my head.

Yes, all this, but I still could not bring myself to say a word. It was only out of respect, you realize. And yes, there was probably more, but let us talk of it another day.