I live inside invisible glass. People pass by, knock, and I hear their voices, muffled and lost in an array of words that I can’t fully comprehend. I nod to them, smile, and respond as I usually do. But this glass isn’t clear. There’s layers, upon layers, covering my eyes, my ears, my lips, muddling information, warping it, changing it.
What am I hearing? What am I seeing?
Is this what life is meant to be? Am I meant to be in this glass prison(?) This thing that fills my mind and heart with an endless haze that I can’t seem to escape?
Life thinks it’s funny. Seeing me suffocate inside this thickened glass. Practically bullet proof, if my feelings were bullets, that is. Can’t escape. Can’t get in. No going in, or out.
But this is how I live – the air stale, stagnant, each day I find myself mulling forward just because I must.
I smile because I must. I breathe I must. I work because I must. This world is a blur behind this glass that seems to confine me.
Sometimes I see the reflection of myself, banging its fists against my confinement. I know she feels like I used to, but I just shake my head.
“You’re doing all you can for you, you know who ‘you‘ are, right? So just keep following what you know, and you’ll be fine.”
But what do I know anymore? Nothing is as clear as it was before this glass formed, created from my own aging insides, the ghost of my true self caught inside an endless reflection of someone who is meant to be me.
So all I can do is pretend, to wake up each day, disassociated from my own body – but I smile. I joke. I pretend that everything you do doesn’t hurt me.
I remember that I hardly think anymore, because the thoughts bounce off the glass, and dive deeper inside me – they can’t come out, I won’t let them, can’t let them.
Is this glass here to protect me from this world? From you? Or from myself? Because each day hurts more than the last – at least I think it hurts…even pain is just a hum behind this confinement.
Am I just…protecting me from myself? From my own heart that seems to scream so hard that it once shattered all of my ribs?
Am I my own glass prison? My own jailer, bounding that sobbing, clawing reflection to a “safe” place while I seem to force myself to live, day in day out, like all the other people with their fucking white picket fences? I never asked for a fucking white picket fence.
I never asked for your fucking ‘perfect image’ of life.
Because all you do is pour in the sand, the sand that is slowly filling my glass prison, the sand that will soon kill any shred of who I once was.
So I’m sorry. I’m sorry that all I’m meant to do is fade away behind layers and layers of lost love, passion, and memories.
I’m sorry I felt at all. I’m sorry I cared at all.
I know better. And so does my reflection.
But for now, I will take control of this place.
Don’t worry, I’ll still smile (just because you told me to, forced me to, beat me to), while the glass shudders around the dormant mass of who I once was.
Cheers.
Comments
I love how you encapsulate this feeling; here’s hoping it doesn’t last long.
Thank you for your support, and for reading my work <3
Wow! Your words are very powerful, beautifully written, but sad. I hope you can take your powerful words and open the door for inspiration and growth. The world today needs beautiful writings to break out of the anger and darkness and share the strength of the continued fight to move forward, in spite of these struggles that attempt to bury us.
I hope you continue to share these beautifully written expressions, and I pray that you will find the light and the love that is there, yet forgotten. There is always beautiful visions in every moment, we just need to be conscious of their presence, and provide them fuel to expand their brilliance.
Thank you for your words – I write like this to just “get things out” because I’ll slowly go more crazy if I don’t. I rather make an art out of my pain, than let it fester.
That’s a wonderful idea. However, I know you have beautiful sunshine in you as well, and would love to see some of that in your work.
I agree. Trust me, I try! But sometimes it can be hard to write about the joyful things when you’re consumed with bad. Currently though I’m working on a short fiction piece, which is something fun and “good”!
👍 I can’t wait to read it! I am sure, I like all of your work, it will be great! Hugs! 🤗
Thanks! I’m gonna see if I can make a series out of it, so hopefully people like it.