You stand there looking at me
without really seeing me.
It’s been a long time
since you’ve looked below the surface.
Somewhere beneath this crumbled up promise
of the woman I could never be
is a goddess yearning for your attention.
She’s aching to hear you tell her
that her eyes are just the right shade of steel blue.
She needs to hear you say that her skin
is a beautiful shade of porcelain white
and that you can’t resist the softness
of her body writhing under your touch.
She wonders if you even miss her smile...
...if you’ve ever noticed the freckles on her nose.
But unspoken she lies trapped;
unacknowledged she is chained
to the pain of never being good enough
she is haunted by feelings of inadequacy.
She is drowning.
She cries when she sees her reflection
and she beats on the glass
that separates her from the world.
You stand there looking at me
and you have no idea
that the white lines
that flow through the blue of my eyes
are cracks in the glass
that keeps her from you.
You stand there looking at me
without really seeing me.
But she sees you.