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Do I Look Different To You?
How this destruction of my mind colors me
We stare endlessly into each other’s eyes. I meet his brown depths and stare back unabashedly. My eyelashes bat and we lie on our arms facing each other. I twist my body to face him fully. I’m not sure why I don’t flinch at him seeing me so vulnerable. I’m naked, my guards feel like they’ve been eroded down.
“Do I look any different?”
I ask him. The daylight streams into my bedroom through the window above us.
I try to not look at myself in the light of my bathroom. When I do look into my eyes I see what has happened to me. It’s like the light has drained out of my hazel eyes. The vivacious tenacity I have for life has faded into a mere pulse.
“Not that I can see,” he admits.
His eyes look up and down my color changing, chameleon depths. There’s a softness to us that is always such a contrast to how we passionately own each other. I can feel him searching. I know the next question he’ll ask me and I don’t know how to answer it.
“How are you?” he asks me.
His tone dips into that deeper reverberation that I can feel in my bones with the question. I take a deep breath in my lungs. Then, I release this sigh like I’m exercising a demon from my gut.