In the Pink

Another from the vaults.


I peep at the world from behind my eyes.

Not that this is unique – that’s pretty much the sum of the architecture of the facial anatomy.

Eyes in face. Soul looks out.

Sometimes — not always but occasionally — it is more than that.

I feel like some small sentient being. Hiding inside my skull, cradling my emotions, feelings and needs to me as I curl my emotions into a foetal ball. Ducking away from the glare of the light, even as I twist to peer out wonderingly through the holes in my head.

Hiding from the world, but not all of me. I peer, therefore, I still connect — or wish to. Or cannot bear not to.

Conscious-stream, emanating from behind the eyes. The world-weary tiredness that propels me inward.

Not far enough to make it a permanent cut — the cruellest stroke of all I could and would not do. It is, don’t you think, the ultimate act of selfishness. Possessed as I am of a long-ingrained horror of being perceived as or as actually being selfish.

But there are times when I wish I could retreat, snail-like.

And peep at the world from behind my eyes.