I take a photo from the box.
It’s a bad choice… it’s that little boy again.
No front teeth and that silly smirk with the ill-fitting clothes he thought so cool.
It’s me, a long time ago, once upon a time…once upon an embarrassing time.
I’ve grown up now and moved on and thank God for that!
But how shaming all the same, a rather pathetic figure, enthroned at the centre of his own little universe.
And really quite ugly. I feel the heat and the sweat of shame.
So, I put the leper back in the box.
Quickly now. I don’t wish to look. I wish to look away.
I bury the leper beneath a hundred other faded prints.
Move on, move on…leave the leper behind.
Though until I can befriend the leper, and hug him to heaven and back –
I can befriend no one on this earth.
