He’s like glass, half formed, forge-heated, malleable and golden white. Look closely and there’s a certain scorching flow to his every movement, his smallest action, the tears that run down his cheeks when he stands with his back to the room. He’s staring out the window, so intent on the world outside that he probably doesn’t realize that his nose is marking the pane.

His eyes could be compared to that. A window. Uncloaked by curtains or dimmed by dust, open and easy to read, but impossible to pass through into the meat, the truth of him. The feelings he holds can’t be shared.

Windows are made of glass.

But so are mirrors.

He’s glasswork that will never be finished, will be stretched and warped and worked until it breaks and is left abandoned. He’s the mirror in which you find yourself. He’s a reflection on the wrong side of the mirror, the likeness of another boy who shattered and scraped; left bloodied, stinging cuts on the fingers.

Glass is made of sand.

He is sand, flowing down through the cracks, burning the wounds on your cupped hands. He’s the softest aggravation in the world.

He’s inside an hourglass, and you’re watching him slip away. He is become the hourglass himself, counting the seconds he has left, pressed against the window, tears like crystals on his cheeks.

And all you can do is watch and think in metaphor.

***End
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