What Looks Back

A microfiction - continues the theme of relationships, a character unable to relate to her partner, with her fears and social anxiety

The eyes are the window to the soul. That concept seems terrifying to me. I imagine what seeing a human soul bared would be like. To see it in its entirety, isn’t that like standing in the presence of God? What truths, what terrible truths, it must hold. I think, to even glimpse a soul through a window, would break anyone’s heart.

Maybe that’s why I don’t look people in the eye. It’s safer to look at their forehead, eyebrows, temples, a spot over their shoulder. I can’t risk knowing that their souls look like, held there in depths of blue, green, hazel or brown.

No, I’d like to believe that that’s what I fear. The truth is, I wonder what they would see in my eyes. I don’t want my soul bared. When I look in mirror, leaning in and squinting at the black circles of my pupils they narrow, like my soul is shrinking away to hide from me. So I can’t know what someone else would see if they caught my gaze in theirs. I’ll have to look at the sun, my soul will run from the light, the brown curtains of my irises will draw closed.

One day, I’ll look you in the eye. I’ll see your soul, and you will see mine. Perhaps you’ll run, like so many others have done before you. But I hope for an exception, not that you’ll be unafraid, but that you’ll stand firm and be brave at the sight of me.

See that I can’t love you completely; my soul is too capricious.
See that I’ll give you all I can; my soul hungers for love.
See that I don’t understand your soul; mine never did play well with others.