10 years older.

Before she left, she washed me. She washed every bit of my skin as if she had committed a sin which needs to be removed. The tiniest cell on my skin felt her hand destroying marks her lips had left, scratches her nails had dug, and letters she wrote in languages unknown to me.

Before she left, she said, “don’t come here anymore, not after I am gone, and forget about things we did.” in reply I asked her, “can you do the same with my memory like you did with my skin?” and there was this silence, flashbacks, and then we both were trying to capture each other. Her eyes were sea green and in that moment it held me, standing at her door, perhaps, expecting a goodbye kiss.

The day she left, I went back to her house. I didn’t want to believe she did, so I waited, until I filled the room where she used to stay, with misery built in; I was alone, trying to figure out what went wrong and answers didn’t pop in my brain, I loathed, drowned in self-pity hoping she would come again and take me out, but she didn’t. She was gone, changed like season and flew like the wind. Oh, I wish I could free my memory.

Years after she left, I was ashamed of myself. It wasn’t so until I saw her in the city once again. We were both in the same compartment but none bothered to talk. There is this part of me that thinks lust controlled my actions back then; the other part justifies. A part of me is afraid of society and its morals which I had eaten for breakfast lunch and dinner; the other part is a rebel. A part of me asked me to pass a smile, another part just drew me back into my previous memories in which I was drowning in self-pity and there was no escape.

Before she left, I was 15, she must have been 10 years older or so, I never asked her age. She was pretty and helped on my way back home when I was sick and puked in public transport. I read her books, she made me coffee; I was probably too you to know what’s right and what isn’t, but now I am around her age and she is yet 10 years older or so, you see, I didn’t ask her age, and I still cannot decide whether it was love or lust. If it weren’t for her, I would not have been good at anything yet, but now, they say I read well. If it weren’t for her, my mind would not have hated its soul for being scarred with memories people his age aren’t supposed to have, but it does, for the sake of morality society wants it to possess, it does.

Before she left, she made sure my body doesn’t smell of her, so she washed me removing her taint but it was too late. For now, I have stories about the way she implanted kisses on my spine which would never leave my mind. For now, I know I was weak once upon a time and regret, they don’t leave my mind.

P.S- well, this may seem inspired because it is, from the movie called, The Reader. I have actually penned down a scene from the movie, it did leave an impact on me.