I look at those around me, how their hearts flutter with sour emotion as they try to paint their normal canvasses with normal colours that everyone uses, trying to ignore the caustic 

vinegar in the bottom of their hearts, eating up, like a single gnawing ant up a thin candy string, where 

this ant is them, each, encased in a shiny golden oval case, so bright are the beams that reflect from their hiding place, they irritate even the best of well-wishers -

- such that they can't see the dark, dry space inside the glittery prison that each reside, bored out of self, seeking for answers, looking for transcendence,

away from the prison bars that they mould from human clay and stick around their tired selves, to prevent the worst of people from hurting them anymore.

Irritated as I am, by the bright beams they show from their faces, as they try to pretend that everything is alright, that everything is normal, all the necessary mechanisms that keep them in place and support their emotions, to stop them short of breaking down and cry, so many of them all around me,

I whisper a word of thanks, that my tardiness prevented haste and regret.

.