Do you look people in the eyes?
I didn't.
I watched my feet pass by hundreds, thousands of people. Across deserts and cities and forests. Magnificent feet, enshrined in leather and beating the pavement across the nation.
If you don't watch the sky, you could miss something beautiful. I say, if you don't watch the ground, it might fall out from under you.
SEEING IS BELIEVING IS SEEING IS BELIEVING IS SEEING IS BELIEVING IS SEEING IS BELIEVING IS SEEING IS BELIEVING IS SEEING IS BELIEVING IS
I'm not talking about that time.
My dad taught me how to not look people in the eyes.
My mom taught me to see the lies in people's eyes. Everyone is a liar. "Good Morning." "Doing Good." "I'm Okay."
Society is organized lying.
Maybe that's why I don't look people in the eyes.
One day I was walking. I could tell because my feet were stepping across the pavement. Never stepping on cracks. Not that I cared. I watched my feet moving to and gro in languid beauty across the granite backdrop, criscrossed with fractured time.
Was I the only one who saw this way, thought these thoughts, stepped this way? Maybe I will find someone who walks like me if I keep the path, and we will watch our feet adventure together.
My feet walked past concrete, then asphalt, then yellow and white bars, and danced on brick walls. They entered stores and squeaked on waxed floors. They collected verdigris from restaurant floors, they burnt across sunlit drives.
But everywhere I went, the eyes followed me. The faces, the windows, and the judges. Kings behind castle walls. I moved out of the way, I moved away, I WAS away.
And if by some chance I should raise my eyes, a lance of fear strike me! There, looking back with cool hate and casual dismissal, the eyes of an Angel, passing judgment from God.
So I didn't. I walked and I walked, and I never looked up. Murmurs crowded me, consoled me, became my friends. Comforted by the presence of the other, for that was enough for me.
When I lay my feet to rest, static would ring in my ears, and yellow my sight. I would feel my heart pulsating alone in the silence.
My neuroses fired across my body in proximity to others, and the murmurs, my friends, quieted. The world had become deadly quiet. Since when was the world covered in yellow carpet? Perhaps another location had entered the craze, another house fallen victim.
All the other feet were completely still.
Why were they still.
They must be LOOKING at me.
I could feel the eyes across my back as I stumbled, ran, crawled beyond the endless seas of yellow carpet and waves of motionless feet. Waiting. Watching.
I knew what they wanted.
I looked, and I saw. A crowd of suits and suede shoes stood over me. A crowd with no face. No mouth. No eyes. No teeth. A flat slab of flesh, watching me.
If you don't look up, they might be faceless.
7.11.23
BACK