You and me

The hurried breakfast, the hours in front of the computer,  the lunch at office, the work that’s done  to make a living, the dinner in front of the television, the mindless programming that occupies. I have many ways of escaping from you. On weekends, there are books to read up, movies to see, the shopping that has to be done, with or without discounts, the afternoon naps, the endless mall visits, the catching up with friends over cups of coffee, the dine outs, the posts to be written, the lifestream style to be maintained. I have a life to live, you know?

Oh there are ways and ways of avoiding you. Even if you do confront me – those moments when you catch me off guard, I pretend not to know you. Until at some point in time, I won’t have to pretend. I really won’t know you, I won’t remember you existed. Maybe I never knew you.You were too difficult to understand. When I looked into your eyes, I was not looking in the mirror, I was looking at a different person.

Maybe if we had met when we were younger, we would have realised we were the same person. But I never looked in the mirror then. There were others who decided for me. When I started looking in the mirror, I saw what I had been made to do, I rebelled. I didn’t realise that I was trading one set for another. You weren’t important enough. I was, and I was busy creating an image of myself. You were not.You were just you.

Even now, I know you’re still there, you are what is, devoid of memories, or rather, the baggage of memories, while I frantically look around for what I should be. I am afraid, terribly afraid that I’ve lost you forever. I cannot try to reach you, I cannot even say that one day I will be you. I am you, or I am not. It takes a moment. I realise there is no middle path. I make my theories, I lean on my faith, I say that in another world I am better off, anything to be not you. For we both know that you will step out of the mirror, only if I cease to exist. I acknowledge you, but this is a fight for survival, of all the things that have made me, me. I fervently hope that I lose. I write this, so that I never forget. That in the mirror, it’s not me, its you. And we’re different. As different as the same person can be.

until next time, the  battles within

PS. The thought continued from last week, also found some kindred thoughts  (thanks to The Time Traveler’s Wife)

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.