• Vol. 07
  • Chapter 06

Co-habitation

My grandfather's house has red floors,
A weary, dusty red, one that cannot seem any older.
Rooms have been added,
Open spaces hedged in by walls.
But the floors have not changed
All these years.
Red floor and green windows:
I always found them an odd pair
Just like my grandparents.
She's no more. The walls have been painted over.
Beside the yellowing calendar cutout however,
They could not cover the peeled off part
With quite the same hue.
The gaping wound is stark
As is the loneliness;
No color can paper over the scar.
Over sixty years of two lives
Spent in that old house
Feels like a set of parallel lines
Edges of a street meant to be always
Together, but never meeting
Running their own course
As if headed for two different ends.
Does living under one roof
Make two lives one?
Guess they will never say,
And I am too shy to ask.

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