A brief self-portrait
When we face in the mirror someone we didn’t want to become.
But they are not bad. They are not sad. They are not someone who is unloved.
They are just there… Amazingly frugal. Forever present, though unseen. Unchanged and unrecognizable. They are one self we have always hidden from, looking outward…
A crude human face on a fragile body. Their eyes don’t say what we want to hear. There is nothing to be said, nothing to be shown — only eyes, reflecting a tired doubt that has become its own object.
You see as you need to, what you can, what you crave, what you seek. It is your responsibility what you see. It is all there, passively exposed. Elusively understandable.
A piece of art that bears the weight needed to set the balance… Just behind all the thought. It is not to be understood, is it? Or rationalized.
Within, yet out of reach.
A mundane self-portrait that nobody else can admire.
I know nothing, I have come to realize. All I know is as brief as a breath. I have finally come to understand who I am — again, as a question. As a silent question that, for the first time, does not demand an answer.
It is okay.
I am not the one I thought I was. Or the other one I once wanted to be. I am not any better than that. And I don’t know how long this will last. There is no ambition beyond just being here…
I am strong sometimes, and sometimes I can’t get any further.
That is okay.
I still have a little bit of time, slipping through my fingers every day, just as it always has. Time doesn’t go any slower or faster… I am not any better or worse…
And so the world hasn’t really changed any more than we have changed too.
