the wall between us
pls excuse the drama im going thru it
The glass wall between us is thick enough that I can pound my fists against it with all I have and you can’t hear me. Your side is full of light, illuminating the glass in a way that lets me observe and witness every detail of you. I’m in the dark. The only thing you see when you look into the glass is your own reflection. I see everything. How you move, how you see, what you feel, what you want. I see the spark in your eyes and the blood coursing through your veins. And overlaid against your reflection I see a faint outline of my own shadow. Face to face with you, that’s all I am. You’re a human and I’m a ghost.
It’s not your fault. I’m the one who brought us here. I shone a light on myself. You mistook it for sunlight and I didn’t have the heart to tell you it was nothing more than a cheap LED. I reflected myself, projected myself, onto you. I illuminated your fears, took them into my hands and placed them each like stepping stones to the place with the glass wall. I created the path. I didn’t mean to. I can’t help it. I always find my way back to the dark.
I guess I underestimated how easy it’d be for you to live in the light while I barely exist in the dark. I know I put myself here but why can’t you see me? See me feeling everything so much so that it blends together until I feel nothing at all. See me lost in my own mind. See me counting hundreds of missteps with only ten fingers. See me unraveling, fading, burning out.
You see only what you want to see.
Sometimes I think you can feel me. My presence on the other side of your reflection. Enough so that you approach the glass and tilt your head. You raise a fingertip, press it against the cool surface. Mine meets yours there. You drag your finger down the glass, I follow. It’s so easy for me to be dragged down. In a way I suppose I enjoy it. Better to have someone else to blame rather than having to look myself in the mirror.
You’re all I’d see reflected back at me anyway.