I started this the other day; it popped into my head when I was hurting and angry and driving home. It isn't finished, and it still needs loads of work (some bits just don't add up and are really rough), but part of this series is just to keep me writing, and I promised to share the unaltered versions here. So, feel free to share your thoughts below.
Behind Closed Eyes
The other me smiles through her pain without so much as a twinge in her eyes. Even the dimple is there, in her right cheek, telling the world that she's happy. That everything is more than okay. But she is me, and I know better.
I watch her. Every time I close my eyes she's there. Her life plays out before me in the spaces between my own, and I wonder if she sees me too, but then her life would mirror my own; would it not?
Opening my eyes, I stare at the tiled ceiling above me, trying to find new shapes and pictures in the lines etched into each one, like clouds in the sky. I wonder if it's still blue beyond the walls or if the smog has gotten so bad there is no sky now. Mostly I just hope there are still birds somewhere.
My eyes itch. The air is too dry in here for me to keep them open long. I blink, and a fraction of a second feel like an eternity. She's hiding in the bathroom, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. But she won't cry. Not 'til she's alone.
Time. Time no longer flows from one moment to the next. It pauses and slows down and speeds up so that I may live another life within my own, but I can't keep up. The moments jumble in my head so fast now that I no longer remember which past belongs to me. Which life is real.
The guard knocks on my door, and I try to remember what time it is.
Behind my eyes, she closes the door behind her, bolting the lock, and sliding down the door into a heap on the floor where she finally, finally let's it all out.
It's time for my session, the guard reminds me, and I force my eyes open. I need to make it down the hall, up the stairs and through two rooms without so much as blinking. Blinking means losing time, means living whole minutes or hours in the span of a second and coming to mid-step in a stairwell.
In this moment I am glad the other me cannot see through time and space the way I do. Glad she does not have the doctors and the shrinks and the drugs that I do. She has a family. Mine are all gone. It is better this way.
