I’m writing this for the relief
of my own heart. The burden and hurt and all the pity I’m struggling to let go
of. This is not my story. I may not tell it accurately and maybe biased with my
own judgement and feelings. But the love and care that person deserves is untold
that I know, I feel the burden he’s carrying. I may not know the whole of his
story because he never let people see beyond his words, his face. There is no
villain here. It is up to the reader to lay his own judgement.
I never knew when it began. I may
never find out. When the first cut was made and became a wound. I may never
find out how the blood spewed and how tears broke in silence. Like the thoughts
he kept inside his head. Words that never left his mouth to be heard and
contemplated upon. Thoughts that may have invoked other thoughts. But little
stories. Bits and pieces of voices and truth come in the most unexpected places
and time. When relief is nowhere to be found but only on the shoulder you’re
allowed to rest your burdens on.
Who am I to tell you this?
Nobody. Just a voice. Something to be a
reason of hurt, annoyance, curiosity, even shame. There is no real story; no plot, no body, no
twists not even an ending. I can only tell you shards of his life, a flash of
his memory that I have etched on my own. I may not be there when and where it
all happened, but what I know it is worth telling; his unsung melody which has
always been a threnody to most. Like autumn after summer.
He was a child, born to be strong
of the mind and heart. But the universe could be unforgiving and unfair. Nobody
to cry on, nobody to talk to, no one to assure him that he’s got his back.
Familiar with the wrath of poisonous pedagogy and all the demons it stirred and
bred within him. A wraith was born and would hunt him and all who’s around him.
Though you cannot alone blame him for it. Nobody wanted to be hunted down by
his own demons. And almost always get inside your head. I wondered why he almost never talked about
his childhood, at least not with happy memories. There’s always this could have’s
and what if’s… ‘only if’.
I figured that some were not
blessed with happy childhoods but when they are surrounded with good, happy
people growing up, it could change what he would be in the future. Like braces
to crooked teeth, or better yet, a guiding wire to a bonsai tree.
He may have his rough and strong
exterior but there’s a child inside that armour.
And the reckoning yielded and
brewed a storm, a war, a wall. As the wound lingers, it sips deep inside an
abyss your mind wouldn't dare imagine. Time alone may not heal, and then maybe
nothing ever could. And love is only palliative.
Do you know him now? Do you know him really, or you ‘know’ who he
is just because he is what he does? Do you know his mind? Have you ever sat
down with him and asked what he really feels? What has been eating him for
years? There's a lot to be uncovered from this man. We may never thoroughly unbound him from his binding. But you'd know him better when you meet his demons.
