The Glass Wall

There is a glass wall between them.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve seen it
symbolized in my mind
in a visual of sorrow,
of a love that unwinds.

There is a brightness,
a beam of purple and gold
and green and blue,
all the rainbows glistening
off of her like dew.
She is every hue.

And yet the brightness is trapped,
entombed behind a wall
crafted of crystal clear glass.

The bright girl grows up against it,
sprouting many-petaled wildflowers and
live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.
She knows on the other side
there is a world she cannot see,
and so she wants it to see her.

And yet, she is mistaken,
as the idealists are wont to be,
that the world outside can gaze in,
can see the beauty that is within.

Instead, on the other side,
there grows a shadow of that bright self
twisted with lies
and fitted with a clever gray disguise…