Since the day I was born, so I’m told, I was different. I was too different for you all.

She kept me away from the world, my mother, kept me away from your gaze, your judgment, your fear.

It’s been so long since I have been close to anyone, since I touched even another living being, now that she has gone.

Now that I have no one I barely exist here alone.

The day she died I vowed not to miss her; I begged my soul to die, but it didn’t.

She was my only companion in this life; and now any link I had to your world is gone.

I walk through the city streets at night and gaze down deep into those tar like pools of midnight rain settled on the sidewalk. This is the only time I feel close to safe around you all. I never look up. I don’t look at a soul, at people like you, because I can’t risk that luxury, because really I’m not part of your world and you… You’ll never be part of mine.

I don’t brush past people in the way that you would. I deny myself the wonder and horror of contact as I dart in between and past individuals and crowds; so that this cursed body won’t ever mar the likes of yours.

I’ve taught myself to dress so that no one will notice me; no one will remember my passing down this city’s squalid streets. I don’t want to alert any of you to my existence. And sadly enough not one of you has ever discovered me walking desperately past you or sensed me shaking silently there beside you.

Not one of you has ever noticed me. And although that is how I know it will always be, it has always had to be; even though it’s what I’ve always worked for, it is torture to live this way.

I, unlike you, have never been stopped and asked for the time, or for directions to the station. No one has ever stopped me to remark on the weather or the state of this or that. I’ve made myself invisible, but it injures how easily you let that happened, allowed me to become so unseen.

I think too often of the day when I realised I would never be allowed to live amongst you; I would never have that normal life that I dream of so. I think of it and I remind myself never to be caught again. I have devoted my life to my rules and my solitude. Never let your guard down, never become weak or soft and never let them get close at all.

I remember so clearly that sunny spring day when I was just a small boy standing nervously close to my mother in the busy jostling market of town. Staring down at the ground, I hear a man’s voice behind me. He asks me if I want a sweet, he asks me my name and, petrified, I just burrow my eyes deeper into the ground.

I want so desperately to reach out and clutch my mother beside me, but know terrified that out in the open I couldn’t risk to touch even her.

She carries on distracted, chatting to the stall owner, while I yearn for her protection.

So tragically expectedly that hand from behind me comes down towards my shoulder and I know even as a mere child that this is perilously dangerous.

My mother had warned me so many times. She made sure I knew. Never look up and never let them touch you.

I try to evade that descending hand but it falls heavily upon my shoulder and as it does the inevitable ensues.

The man’s hand settled upon me starts to grow great swirls and intricate branches of colour and pattern; glowing marks of strange symbols starting at that first point of contact and then rising quickly up his arm. As they do they look like the shoots and buds of some strange shimmering plant. I don’t know what those muted translucent colours and strange etchings on his skin mean, I never do, but I feel that man’s horror chase down into me as my curse invades him.

I look up at him, and as usual, there’s that aura that surrounds you all leaking out from his silhouette and into the space around; dull washed out colours that make as little sense to me as any of this ever does, as any of you ever do.

He’s screaming, shouting now, and as he pulls his hand away, he stares horrified at the markings that have already begun to pale and fade, blurring into the natural tones of flesh.

My mum’s grabbing my hand, drops her baskets, is dragging me through the crowded streets; and I can’t keep at bay the tears in my eyes as I watch my curse attacking her fair complexion, colours rising up again and again to tangle amongst growing friends.

We run until we see the city cemetery, never looking back, and when I see a mausoleum standing tall and eerie amongst the smaller graves I know that this is where she intends us to hide.

I hate the cemetery now. I hate the thoughts and memories it brings. Once I saw it as fun, gazing at the pretty carved marble and granite headstones and tombs on solitary days with her. These days it just makes me think of the day I truly understood that I must never, can never have a life even close to yours.

When we get inside that dark crypt I sit gasping on the cool marble floor; the beautiful colours from its tiny stained glass window bathing me in glorious bright streaks of light.

My mother sits fussing beside me, stroking the hair from my eyes, the tears from my cheeks. But God do I wish she’d stop touching me, I want so dearly for those marks to disappear from her. I don’t want to scar her, even for a second, with my curse.

When she finally stops, and my heart finally quiets, and the thudding in my ears begins to dull, I blink around at my scenery with the quiet inquisitive naivety of a child. I look at the plaque covered marble wall in front of me and muse at each individual shelf.

Over the sound of my mother’s exhausted breaths I begin happily to recall odd events of each occupant’s life.

I tell my mum about the girl who loved apple blossoms and summer rain and who wore her favourite sky blue cotton dress on the day she met the boy that she always loved even after he left her; the man who proposed to his sweetheart on the edge of town as the sun went down and who travelled to France just to buy the purest silk for her wedding dress; and the woman who could play the violin with such beautiful grace but never found the courage to perform to a soul.

My mother just smiled over at me and gathered herself up from the dusty floor. As she brushed over her dress, with still trembling hands, she laughed softly.

How is it that you see so much? She sighed kindly, her eyes sparkling with a melancholy stained touch of pride.

I saw so much and yet I knew so little… And it remains the same even now.

But that day I knew one thing. I never wanted to be a part of your world ever; I never wanted to be caught again.

The years go on and I never lose that thought; never lose that desire to lock myself away for safeties sake; for the sake of both you and me. Because we’re not the same and I’m not like you and we should never be side by side.

***

And then when I’ve become so completely accustomed to this solitary existence of mine... You come into my life and destroy that all. You demolished my carefully constructed wall of protection with your gentle hands and although it never reaches my lips I want so deeply to say that I owe everything to you.

***

Standing under the shelter I wait anxiously for the night bus. I hate these situations… Where I am forced to stand around. The increased chance that in this vulnerable static state I’ll be noticed makes my heart race even when I’ve been resting here motionless for almost an hour now.

To my relief I haven’t seen anyone in hours and, as usual, those that I did neglected to see me.

I glance at my watch and wince at the reflection I spot faintly mirrored across the face.

Those eyes... Those terrible violet eyes.

I avert my attention back to the trash littered ground, to discarded wrappers and cigarette butts sitting like tiny buds and blooms and shrubs growing up in this ugly urban garden. The world is so ugly in its sprawling bloated vulgarity, even when it‘s dressed in the delicate shadows of night.

“You know I don’t think this bus is ever gonna show…” I hear suddenly, horrifically unexpectedly, from behind me.

A voice, unusually tender and gentle for a man’s, disturbs the peace and violates the midnight air. You’re twenty four, you’re a Virgo but only just, you hate being caught in thunderstorms and you’ve always wanted a cat but you can’t… You’re allergic.

I ask myself how it is that I see all these things yet you snuck up so easily behind me.

Fearfully I feel myself frozen to the spot as my heart drums violently in my chest. I chastise myself angrily for letting this happen, for getting lost in my thoughts and being caught so completely unawares. Panic chases up my throat and this is more than I can bear.

Taking deep calming breaths I wait to hear an answer, hope to work out exactly how many people I might need to evade. But as I stand shaking and straining to hear in the still cool night air no answers came.

“Good job it’s a nice night,” rings out into the silence, the slightest echo created by the desolate midnight streets devoid of life apart from me and that voice; and the realisation and the horror that it was addressing me.

Don’t turn around I tell myself, don’t let them see your eyes.

And so I wait there with senses heightened, straining to hear, waiting to catch the sound of cloth grazing gently against cloth as the threat behind me moves in, or the motion of an arm swishing carelessly through the air, any warning that the chance of contact may be near.

“It is a nice night,” that voice muses and I think momentarily of how the gentle tones caress the peace of the barren cityscape.

Sadly I think of how that voice talking, reaching out to me, appealed so very much to this man who lacked daily the simple joy of conversation.

When I hear a scuffed footstep on the paving between us I dart forward like the frightened creature I lament that I am.

I warn myself that I’m getting weak these days; letting my guard down just to listen to the tender speech of a stranger, of one of them, someone of your perilous world.

I know these indulgences are too deep, too dear. I’m letting myself slip into danger for the first time ever.

Steps cease and silence adulterates the air.

“I’m sorry,” you begin, and skilfully my hearing recognises you take a step back. “I didn’t mean to startle you… I mean I’m sorry… Look I’m gonna walk I think... That bus isn’t coming.”

You sigh deeply after your regret filled apologies. They tell me you are genuine but can’t weaken  my well practised guard.

I’m terrified of you all; every single one.

“Care to walk with me?” You say so casually and, in my enchanted stupor, I think the words sound like poetry.

“I… I don’t think you’re going my way…” I mumble down to my chest.

God, this is getting harder and harder to escape from.

“Well where’s home?” you begin again cheerily with the slightest, and most charming, touch of inquisitiveness in your voice.

“I live in the Georgian Quarter...” I whisper quietly before mentally slapping myself in the face for giving any kind of a secret away.

You’re going to get yourself into something you can’t handle, you’ve never prepared for, I warn myself.

“That’s a pretty bad area…” You answer genuinely and I struggle to think under all this temptation and jeopardy.

“Yeah well… I’m a pretty bad person,” I say in reply, hoping foolishly to warn you away before it’s too late.

“Somehow I doubt that,” you laugh softly. I think I like your laugh.

“You don’t know me,” I whisper.

I take this opportunity to walk quickly away; fleeing and feeling the gentle autumn night’s wind rush over my face and through my hair.

This is for the best I tell myself; but instantly I feel robbed of what could have been.

“Hey, wait up,” you call over the wind’s gentle roar.

I walk faster, urgency in every step.

But really do I want you to follow me as I listen to your hurried steps echo through these deserted streets?

It’s funny but you’re so much faster than me. And in my panicked state of paranoia I fear the suspicion that I might create by running.

I know you’re right behind me as I hear that awful sound of cloth against cloth ripping through the air; recognise that you’re reaching up to tap my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” I cry out, more of a beg than a command, swinging round to face you, the only person in years to have taken any note of me.

I stand breathless, staring into your alarmingly blue eyes, desperate frightened pants quake in my chest.

You look like peaceful summer days, even here shrouded by these late autumn hours. Your mahogany hair has the lightest touches of copper and gold; it frames a pale face of delicate features, of rose petal lips and deepest blue ocean eyes. Your eyes shine like none I have ever seen before. They are a blue sky on a summer day, a clear perfect sea, bizarrely dressed in piercing stars.

I tear my sights away from the depths of your gaze to inspect the colours I anticipate will surround you. There in the ether is your aura shining in the dim glow of cloud shrouded moonlight. And I’m completely shaken by what I see. Instead of the usual dull muted colours, I see around your kind, there are bright shining shades of beautiful hues.

I can’t comprehend how you can be the same as them, one of them, but so completely, wonderfully, different. Surrounding you is azure and lilac. It is sapphire and gold sitting upon deep mauves and greens; and it is entirely beautiful.

It doesn’t seem to infect the air like that of the others, but dances hand in hand with nature and the earth as it spills out gloriously from you into the universe.

You stand motionless, arm still raised, poised to touch my shoulder.

We’re both lost for words; and really it’s still fear imparting its most horrific of touches onto me that keeps enchantment from rushing out into gesture or word.

God no, I’ve done it now, I panic hopelessly.

Your mouth falls open and I stand trembling, waiting for your screams.

“Your eyes…” You begin and my mind races.

This is the end of everything.

I squeeze them fiercely shut as my entire body shakes in terror.

I let my chin drop and feel faintly how my soft raven hair falls over frightened features; elect to focus on the feeling of cool air on my skin and the pulse that beats beyond control in my veins.

“…They’re… They’re beautiful,” you stutter, your voice irrepressibly stained with what sounds like admiration.

This doesn’t feel real, but for the sensation of autumn that invades everything around me. The smell of damp nature fills my lungs, the cool air hits my skin, and all this tells me that this is happening, this is real and you are really here.

I raise reluctantly a shaking face and slowly open tear flecked eyes.

You stand running a confident hand through flawless waves of flame touched hair. I recognise that you are fearless in the face of me and I don’t understand.

You continue brushing away the silken strands that the night’s breeze had disturbed and blown gently over your face; and I squeeze my fingers into their opposite’s palm. I await nervously your next action.

I’ve spent so long running from people like you… So that now in the presence of another fear is all I know how to feel.

Your elegant lips curve up into a smile; that I know you’re not even aware you’re showing. Is it possible that you’re as lost in my features as I am in yours?

I don’t know if I’m crying, but I know I feel the wetness that has gathered in the corners of my bewildered eyes.

But this can’t be true and I can’t trust your kind and I need so desperately to escape all this…..

When I turn and flee from you I feel an almost instant pain at the absence of your image, the lack of your presence.

The night feels impossibly empty and cold as I run breathlessly through the city streets.

Tears run desperately down cool and dampened cheeks and I wish I didn’t miss you.

I don’t understand what this is that I’m feeling, but it infects me nonetheless.

**

Lying on the deep soft bed of my dim apartment I try to erase the memory of you.

It’s like you’re in my bloodstream now; the thought of you courses through my veins and reaches my every limb.

I light a cigarette and lay numb; staring out of my window and over the twinkling lights of urban civilisation in the distance.

The cityscape winks knowingly at me in return; smoggy and decaying. It lays before me like a dying star; burning out into the skyline. Twinkling and bustling, yet lost entirely in the depths of its death throws.

The city lies before me but all I can think about is that lonely street, that shady scene, the very place where I fell into your eyes and you so subtly invaded my mind.

The idea of you makes me lose sight of everything else.

I think that maybe, by turning my back on you, I have made the biggest mistake of my life.

I’m haunted by your voice echoing in my ears and the sight of you, your grace, your beauty, your aura.

I sit and watch the sun creep up into the sky with the image of you stalking my mind.

**

How did you rip down the walls of my protection with just the look in your eye?

And how did I find myself back here in the middle of the night at that same staunch uninviting stop?

How was it that I let myself walk down these midnight dressed streets just to hope to find the sight of you?

The wind pours over me and forces a shiver as I inspect the area around and before me.

I stare over to the space that will forever be the place where you and I met; I long for you to be there.

A bare uninviting landscape looks back at me; the cool grey colours of masonry and concrete bathed in moonlight taunt and wound so deeply.

Why did I think you’d be here? Why did I let myself believe in you… In this? This torture I endure, I concede, I have brought upon myself.

I greet and welcome the familiar stab of hopelessness that pierces my heart; and turn my back on that awful empty scene.

It was never meant to be… Me and this world… We’re not meant to be…

“You know I don’t think this bus is ever gonna show…” I hear suddenly, wonderfully unexpectedly, from behind me.

So overwhelmingly excited, and drenched in anticipation and fear, I feel myself frozen to the spot as my heart drums violently in my chest and the words of a reply stick in my throat.

Taking deep calming breaths I try to quiet the voices in my head screaming at me to get out of here before it’s too late. Because really despite everything I’m daring to dream I still can’t believe that this can really be.

“Good job it’s a nice night,” rings out into the silence, the slightest echo created by the desolate midnight streets devoid of life apart from me and that voice; and the realisation that I think maybe you want this too, it’s not a cruel trick. I think that inexplicably this is really happening, it’s really real.

“You came back…” I whisper to the shadows spread out languidly before me.

“And so did you,” you softly reply.

I draw in another shallow breath; try to swallow the panic rising up through me.

"What is it that we're doing here?" I ask fearfully to the streetlamp's light I stare up into.

"You know... Does it matter?" You laugh quietly.

I am still consumed by apprehension. I can't for the life of me dispel the fear and distrust I've created within myself from years of living alone… Encased in self-enforced isolation.

I turn to look at you; and I think that maybe you're even more beautiful than I remembered.

You walk towards me with smiling gentle features and it takes all my strength not to shy and back away.

You're amazing, my angel, but I tell myself you're still one of them.

You hold your hand out to me and I don't understand.

You look expectantly into my eyes and I know what you want. Please don't make me do this I want so desperately to beg.

"Last night you wouldn't let me touch you..." You whisper slowly. "But now... Are things different now? Has anything changed at all?"

Has anything changed…? Everything’s changed since last night, since I met you. My world is changed because of you my perfect stranger.

I just stare at you. I don't want to do this; but slowly I raise a shivering hand.

And you walk in closer and I want to run.

It pains me that you don't understand what you're about to do.

It pains me that I can't find the words to tell you; to warn you about me... About this all.

"Please..." Falls from my lips and you raise a quieting finger to your own.

Another step forward is taken and I feel dizzy and sick and excited. I feel like I'm passing out.

Finally we touch, as the very tips of our fingers meet under this electric blanket of excited haze. A shaking tip murmurs against yours; because my fear is irrepressible as it invades every inch.

With a quiet horror I watch as scrolls, spirals, flames of curving citron and gold and scarlet erupt on to you. I watch the emerging colours grow upon your flawless skin and I want to weep. I want to apologise to you.

Your eyes grow wide and your mood seems to shift into one of a growing state of alarm… But amazingly, mercifully, it doesn’t weaken your resolve to suppress your fear in the face of this all... It doesn’t stop your determination to give this gift to me. You don’t for a second move; instead you press your finger harder against mine.

But this is unreal… You are unreal.

And then next harsh painted lines of azure and emeralds and deepest purples, like Chinese characters or forgotten ancient symbols, mark you like life-given hieroglyphs. They entangle with soft branches and chase up your finger that stands steadfast and sure against my trembling own.

And this is awful. I don’t want to do this to you. I dread the moment when we connect and I will finally feel your true horror at these events.

In this desperate scene there’s tears pouring down my cheeks and I’m crying and I am so very sorry. I’m sobbing, telling you over and over again that I am so incredibly deeply sorry. But you just smile and stand sure before me. You’re not afraid. You’re entranced.

And I want so deeply to understand who it is that you are… And why the hell you’re doing this all. But when I search your motivations I find they are entirely pure. You’re such a creature of innocent whim and endless wonders.

Those marks creep and grow, grow hand in hand with your wonder, and I feel panic and fear fade and die as your emotions rush into me. You’re happy and bewildered, you’re excited and unafraid and this feels like nothing has before it.

How amazing it is to be unafraid.

And then, when my head spins with the joy you’re giving me and my legs feel like they’re giving up, I am given yet another glorious mercy.

The endless colours upon you, your endless colours, are bleeding into me.

Open mouthed I watch as the mirror spirals and scripts of opalescence and colour infect me. I watch them steadily conquering inch after inch, moving up through my hand to my wrist to my shivering forearm. And where once I only felt shame or pain or numbness I feel warmth and comfort as you wash over me.

The bright colours we wear dazzle and beguile and I forget entirely the peril we are in. I don’t consider the danger because this cannot be reality and these wonders can’t be real. This shouldn’t be… And yet it is; these events that I never dared to dream to be so.

Suddenly you snatch my fingers into yours and entwine them deeply. You close the gap between us and place a soft grip on my trembling waist. I gaze down at the areas where our bodies meet, see that they shine with the greatest intensity, that these blessed inches are occupied with the deepest shining hues.

And when was it that the awful city streets surrounding us turned into a peaceful wasteland? When did my fear for you become lost amongst the stars in your eyes?

I’m bewitched in these events; lost in your embraces.

“Have you ever… Before?” I stutter; transfixed by the colours we share.

“No… No. You?” You enquire in graceful tones.

“Every time,” I answer sadly.

“But I’ve never… They’ve never... Before… I’ve never seen them on me…” I rejoice.

I gaze over my glowing body and I think maybe this can all be okay.

We stumble and fall into the intensity of this moment and I ask myself how it was that I became so embroiled in this most foreign sensation of intimacy?

And maybe this is the most danger I have ever been in but I feel so safe in your arms. I am impervious to the world as I return your gesture and wrap my arms around you. Because although your tender words are your artillery and your gentle touches your arsenal, being attacked by you doesn’t make me feel weak or defenceless. Loosing my armour makes me feel secure from harm.

When your lips crash into my own I don’t understand what you’re doing, but still my fevered return comes oh so naturally.

And could I have ever dreamt of any of this? If only I had had that solace. But all that is irrelevant now because you are my comfort from the memories of the past. You erase the years and years of solitude I endured; until now it feels like you were always there in a way invisibly standing by my side.

When dampened lips part from their deepest prayer they glisten under the moon’s pale light.

“You’re not… Afraid?” I whisper deliriously searching your eyes.

“No… Not at all,” you smile.

“But my curse… I don’t understand,” I say still clutching desperately your form.

“It’s a gift,” you say with certain tender honesty.

“A gift…?” I stutter; my voice decked in hope and strained by desire.

“It’s like… It’s like all of my life I’ve walked around blind. You’ve been there out in the world… The only person who really sees… And then now… Right now… I’m not so blind. When you touch people maybe you just let them see. And maybe I don’t understand it… And maybe you don’t either… But why does it have to be understood? Why explain it away? All I know is you have the power to do something wonderful… You can… You can give the blind the gift of sight…” You smile.

I stare at you amazed. You are the most wonderful person.

And letting go of you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

Watching our colours pale and fade and leave us is all I can manage.

“I’m gonna walk I think… That bus isn’t coming,” I whisper. “Care to walk with me?”

“I don’t think you’re going my way,” you smile.

“Well where’s home?” I return to you.

“I live in the Georgian Quarter,” You offer out to me in the dark.

“That’s a pretty bad area,” I laugh.

“I’m a pretty bad person,” you say through features that shine with quiet joy.

“Somehow I doubt that,” I remark intrigued and overwhelmed that you’re actually doing this with me.

And everything in this moment feels so right and everything in your perfect eyes tells me that this is just the beginning.

Wordlessly we turn our backs on the spot that will forever be the place where we met.

“Well…” You whisper softly. “Let’s go home.”

And you didn’t need to say anymore because I just knew that from this day on I’d never be alone again.