Something happened here.

Something happened here. 

I've been here and not known where else to go. 

I've been here and wanted to be here. 

I've walked up and down this long passage at 6 and 7 and 8 

And at 16 cried and said goodbye to these walls one sudden day on my birthday

As you rushed us out and threw us into the gates of emancipation 

That lasted only a year. 

I've dreamt of this place and longed to be there. 

To be back again, hanging out the half open kitchen door, gazing at the stars

Singing my lungs out to the walls that listened

I've loved these walls

And upon returning embraced these walls and my fate within them

I've hated this place until I loved it evermore

But something happened here

Things have happened here

Things that the walls scream so deafening 

Every time I think of here because despite the fact that nobody wants to talk about this exhausted topic of why and why and why are we 

Like this, these walls remain and echo silently day to day

These walls that are still here listening

When someone else should be here listening instead. 

A person. 

The prayers we utter under this roof fall short when breath hits the ceiling 

The words are swallowed in this concrete, never to penetrate through

There's no seeping, saving plea or utter that will deliver the message further than this enclosure 

But the words will bounce around from wall to wall until we entertain them

In our hearts

That someone here is missing and has left us with these echoing walls as a reminder of it 

Because these walls heard his prayers too when nobody else would listen

These walls heard his screams and his tantrums and his pleas and his cries

When we chose to look elsewhere 

They probably know him better than we do

These are the witnesses.

Something happened here.

I'm not sure what it is anymore. 

All I can say is that it happened to me too. 

It happened to all of us. 

But we won't talk about it.

It's bigger than the elephant in the room. 

And evident in the absence of a soul in this stratosphere. 

Surely now the walls reveal to us the secrets he whispered for so long to deaf ears

I gaze about wondering if I can be here or there and still understand so implicitly that some things cannot be expressed in words and neither will they be heard with the ears 

But felt with the heart 

So much that shut hearts cant decipher the thoughts of a babbling man

Desparate to connect to his root

But instead plucked from there and cast out like dirt into the rubble

The rotten apple that fell not too far from its tree

It's worms now gnawing away at the bark through the root that refused to  nourish it. 

And now this fortress losing it's branches one by one. 

I am watering this place with my tears to feed the boabab.

I'm praying to the sun.