The Glass Box

She turned to me with sad eyes.

"I'm living in a glass box," she whispered. "They pick me up and carry me places inside my box. They allow me to see the world, but never to touch it. It just passes me by."

She paused for a moment to brush the hair from her face so that she could look me in the eye, my hazel eyes meeting her sparkling green nebulae.

"The whole world just passes me by," she repeated with more intensity. "I can never touch the world and thus, I am never touched by the world. I remain static in my prison of glass."

There were no tears, just heavy silence that hung in the air around our eyelashes and our mouths and our ears, pulling on our shoulders, pushing on our backs, rooting our legs to the spot.

The bees had gone silent and the birds no longer sang. All I heard was a gentle wind rustling in the leaves, through the grass and through our hair, rippling through our clothing.

"What I wouldn't give to feel the weight of the world..."