You came here in search of an answer.
Not the answer, mind you—just one that might scratch that itch you can’t stop picking at. The question has been nesting in your head for years, a restless bird with claws for feet. And yet, from where you stand, you’ll never understand it.
If I told you the story from start to finish, it wouldn’t help. You’d still try to cram it into your own little box, bend the edges until it fit the shape of what you want to believe. It’s better you write your own story, the one where I’m a shadow in the background. Leave out the part about me. You don’t know who I am, not really.
I’m who I let you think I am—for your own good, or maybe for my own amusement. Neither here nor there, neither near nor far. You could call me, but I wouldn’t answer. There’s nothing left to say about what’s already been left behind. And behind… well, that’s exactly where you’ve been left.
The universe, in all its dark humor, keeps dropping little reminders at my feet. Tidbits of why, for when I didn’t understand the means. I took them in, turned them over, pieced them together like bones in a beak. And I watched. Oh, how I watched. I watched as you tied your own rope, looped it over your own branch, and swung there for all to see.
And here I am—where you swore I would never go.
You said I wasn’t worthy of my own dreams.
That was you, wasn’t it? Those words?
You wanted my life to be a reflection of your failure. You wanted to look me in the eye and see someone just as small as you. Instead, I look at you—and I laugh.
I laugh at all the things you will never be. Not because you can’t, but because I know you won’t. You’ll keep landing everywhere except where you were meant to be, flapping into windows you can’t see through, blaming the glass. Still lost, still circling, still waiting for something to start while the clock keeps going without you.
And I?
I am the raven perched above it all, bored, but watching.
Always watching.
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