Birligham Street

Birligham Street

Dear Molly,

Is there a song you can hum

That can numb the pain

Stubbing my faint heart?

Then sing it. Sing it for me.

Is there a song you can hum

To make me forget the sorrow

Imbibed in my reputation?

Do sing it. Sing it for me.

Is there a song you can hum

That will lift off the weights

Slowing me down on this course?

Go ahead, sing it for me.

Is there a song you can hum

For my weary soul to rejoice

At the beckoning gates of heaven?

Please, sing it. Sing it for me.

Hours have dripped by into days, each minute feeling like it lingered just a bit too long, hesitant to let go. Days stretched on, blending seamlessly into one another like brushstrokes on a fading canvas. Weeks have slipped by like sand through fingers. The calendar on the wall beginning to look strange, with days crossed out, but the dates didn’t seem to carry meaning anymore. Seasons have shifted almost without notice; trees outside have shedded their green for gold, amber, and rust. Leaves have drifted to the ground, and the air turned cooler, but inside, time feels frozen. The days are now a mosaic of memories, blending into one another, each one a subtle echo of the last. All I can clearly say is that it has been a long time. A long time enough to feel like weeks stretched to decades. Time has bent in strange ways ever since that last day we spent on Birligham Street, when I watched you vanish into the mist like a wisp of memory. I couldn't rest that night remembering your face. We strangely accepted to follow the commands of our hearts. And we were ready to learn everything thereafter. So fast. Funny, huh?

I did not write to tell you know how we met. Your spirit eager to know why I write, I know, gets tired going through this when you vividly know how it happened. Yes, you were there. We were there. But my heart likes reviewing it as my mind thinks about it all over again and again. Telling it here again makes it— if you really feel it as I know you really do— more than it has ever been. It is the best salad our different hearts made; you said that. I do remember. One of the mysteries, I believe, history has ever captured. Birligham Street. A street that I have never thought of having much. But it has been much more of late. Much that I find sometimes hard to bear. I don't know why the sun was setting just then but if it was to enchant the atmosphere of the proceedings, it surely did. Was it maybe that that day I saw it clearly than the other days? I walked the very same street going home after work. I...