Sweet Potato

Khan Khalili market. Midnight.
We stand in the dark alleyway, intoxicated by the scent of herbs, dust,
sweating bodies, lights in the distance calling to us sweetly like the shopkeepers with their greedy smiles and "Welcome,Welcome!" calls.

He tears his teeth into a sweet potatoe, steam drifts up into the air, he blows on his fingers, stained orange. The fruit lies wrapped in pages of an old copybook, I come closer to try and read the scribbles, or at least that's my excuse.

He rips off a piece and offers it to his
girlfriend, who refuses, so I say yes, of course.
Our fingers touch, but it means
nothing, at least not anymore.
I slip the sweet skin into my mouth, chew, cough at the heat, try not to choke. My eyes well up, mynose goes red, he laughs and our
eyes meet.

I feel hurt by his neglect, his inability to remain my friend, despite the obvious fact that he doesn't want me too.

He is intimidated by my persistance and my eyes that show just how much I feel, and he can't handle it.
"Want some more?" he asks, breaking the silence, sweet potatoe stuck
between his teeth. I start to choke on the sweet
disappoinment he has handed to me, wrapped in the pages of an old copybook, scribbles and sweat, mystery and misery, dark alleyways,
colours suffocating me. His girlfriend, and us.

Some more?

"No. Thank you," I answer.
And I mean it.