Shy i appreciate sheepish looks. like the one i caught when i paused from writing in my journal. i focus. i think you can feel when someones left the time and space they're supposed to be occupying. it's unnerving and soothing to watch people when they're like that. to me, concentration is glazed over dead eyes with a beating heart and a heaving chest. a shell person. you can tell, you can just tell that the head is whirring and the soul's gone elsewhere and you want to peek into the head and you want to follow the soul, but all you can do is look at the shell left behind and then later the shell becomes as engrossing as the story inside it. it's a different kind of naked when you're caught dreaming. but maybe it's the same kind of pleasure for a tired, old voyeur. sometimes people can invite you in, and they're very admired because mostly inner thoughts are floating sacred things, and mostly we call those parts private i used to admire them too, and i wanted to be like them but lately i've been thinking about shyness, sheepishness and fear and how they're automatically assumed to be feelings you have to conquer and i've been thinking about how learning the story feels the same as watching the shell. why does it feel the same? the same kind of intimacy, but it's supposed to be a different distance right? outside looking at the dreamer, and inside looking at the dream maybe looking is always the same distance, no matter where you're looking from or what you're looking at and maybe when people present you their insides, it doesn�t mean that they've come out of hiding. and maybe they haven't been brave at all maybe they've just learned the trick of pulling people in knowing they'll never be closer and maybe it's lying, and maybe that hurts them i don�t want to do that i don�t want to pretend that my skin is a suit until it becomes leather and i don�t want to pretend that my head is on display until it becomes a spectacle i'm not ashamed of being shy anymore. |