The Lighthouse
My friend left recently.
We used to work together, keeping many ships from crashing into the rocky shore.
I guess he couldn’t stand it any longer,
the loneliness.
I thought we had a good thing going,
I wasn’t ever lonely, I had him.
I had the sound of his soft, careful footsteps as he walked up the stairs, as if it were made of clouds, and any second he would fall through.
I had the sound of him in the kitchen, pouring Early Grey into his favorite cup. The spoon making a clinking sound as he stirred in honey.
I had the sound of him trimming the rosemary, the clippings falling gently on my tiled floor.
I had the sound of his sigh bouncing off my walls.
He’d sit in the library in the afternoon, his pen making a scratching sound as he wrote in the margins of my books. The rustle, whenever he turned a page.
The only time I’d get a good look at him was in the morning when he would comb his
hair in front of the mirror. Looking straight at me,
or so I thought at first.
Then I noticed the distant look in his eyes.
He would stand right in front of me,
yet seem so far away.
I should’ve taken it as a sign.
About the Poet
Haleema Aziz is a Public Health major at Mission. She plans on going to paramedic school. In her free time, she enjoys reading, taking long walks, and telling awful jokes to her friends and family.