If I lent your eyes for a moment And found my face in unfamiliar atmosphere My name sounded different in your silence My shadows had grown little wings My reflection held a secret That my mirror had been keeping from me.
A whole world folds into your lens Tiny strangers crossing the bridges of your attention A thousand lives passing through two small windows Between their movements and your gaze I caught a glimpse of myself.
I wonder what shape I take in your vision A lighthouse or a shipwreck at dusk? A house with painted windows Or a garden blooming with colourful flowers? Perhaps you see stuff I buried so carefully Sprouting wild flowers from the cracks in my calm.
How it frightens to become another thing When held beneath the light of another's understanding I have worn that distance too And held the world at the edge of my gaze I let the lens decide what part of me Would be seen and what would stay hidden Behind the glass quietly and unanswered.
But what of you behind those lens Do your eyes carry ghosts that look like me? Do I become a colour from your childhood? A face that resembles something you once lost? Perhaps everyone we look upon is a window Through which our own forgotten selves appear
I cannot trust your gaze to tell me everything For even glass distorts the image it reflects But I will remember your soulful eyes How I became both the observer and the observed How your world briefly rearranged mine And left me wondering whose reflection I was all along.
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "the other side of the fence”.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Image by Jonas Svidras from Pixabay
