I Am the One Who Gazes

Many people do not lend themselves to be knowable. They hide, while real love, when it presents itself, becomes spent away on a transient idea that replaced them. Love inevitably wanes.

For a long time, I hid, because I did not know what to do with myself. Perhaps I was sorry –apologetic-- to exist. Everywhere I had turned for guidance on what I should do with myself, I could not find it.

At first, when Erik would look at me –into my face, my eyes-- for a while, I would need to tear my own gaze away after a few moments. I was ashamed. I could never allow him to look into my eyes for as long as he did. I was afraid to be found out for not knowing myself, as if I had been a farce.

He did not know this until I told him about a month ago, when I realized that this had changed.

I can now look at him, fully facing him, as long as he does. It happens, I think, in moments when we are feeling attuned to ourselves, in surrender to the forces of the world, but knowing that we are together. I can feel him in some way, looking through me, as if perhaps he was seeing the world through me. Or maybe that is just a certain sort of thinking face –concentrating on something, like a feeling.

I look at him, too: his open face, his almond shaped eyes that let in so much light. I sense, now, the person that longs for that face. She is presently within: observing with eagerness, thinking, feeling for herself, and unafraid to show herself. She is here, contentedly, shattering me with her presence, and that pair of gentle eyes are unchanged, blind to her.

We smile.