His eyes determine her reality.
She knows them like the back of her hand.
She knows the meaning of each glimmer, each shadow,
changing by the second.
She knows the meaning of each inflection,
the sadness and bitterness creeping into the edges of his voice.
She knows the meanings of his words
and the meanings of everything unsaid;
she knows because his feelings are hers.
His tears are hers because they infect her.
His anger is hers because it is familiar.
His despair is hers because it was her mother’s before her,
and his mother’s before him,
passed along like a family heirloom.
And she aches to compare him—
perfect, wonderful, ethereal him—
to someone as monstrous as her;
but the similarities fragment and form a whole
pieces of a broken mirror that displays what she could have been
not if her moods didn’t change on a dime,
but if she’d dared to know it.
If she’d dared to know that she was me and I was her.
You have me hypnotized;
wrapped around your finger,
trapped under your skin,
and you know it.
We are one and the same,
I would do anything for you,
and you know it.
I pray that you only use me for good.