Dark, Bright

I could see nothing but his perfectly shaped lips as they make motions to form words. By the light of the overbright table lamp we bought from Ikea, he looks up the ceiling as we talk, exhausted. Here we are again, struggling to piece us two together. I will remember him best as he sits dejected on the new couch, in my new apartment, in the new university accommodation. As he struggles to explain something from his heart rather than his head, I look out the windows listening to his voice. I care for this man. In a way I have never quite known before. Even though its maddeningly difficult. And I do not know how he is so sure of me when I am always doubtful of him. I do not know what will happen in the coming days, months, years. But at that moment, limned by the lights of the shiny new monuments to this university's will to greatness, I discovered what it means to be humbled by something so precious, so real, it hurts.