Forlorn, she stands behind

cracked pane of glass.

Glass stares back

with soulful eyes -

broken reflection

sealed in ice.

Secrets hidden within,

she can’t recall.

Glass slashes her hand

plunging through

struggling valiantly

to find her truth.

For minutes, the night

has no sound as she

gasps in gulps

of dead skin flaking

onto frayed edges

on the other side.

Swept away by

splintered glass,

drops of sadness

cascade

in river of tears.

She envisions hundreds

of souls straining

to come through

the windowpane.

But she was her

own reality –

No one was

on the

OTHER SIDE.

She stands 

behind a pane 

of broken glass.

Yet, to her,

the window 

is crystal clear.

I stand 

juxtaposed to her,

smiling, waving.

I take a step

she stops me.

"You can't,

it's glass."

I reply.

"But you 

can hear me."

She shakes her head.

You're not allowed.

So I sit down,

Pushing shards away.

Wrapping my hands

in my shirt.

She opens up,

I hear the saddest,

the sweetest,

the loneliest stories.

She's alone.

No one approaches.

Not even a brush of skin.

"I'm here for you!"

I say. I run to her.

"No!" She says. 

"You can't cross."

She stands behind a pane of broken glass, laughing at me. There are even more stones by her feet.

"You're insane!" I yell at her, the fearing climbing out of my stomach and into my words, "You're destroying your own house!"

She pauses her demolition to smile at me. Her loose hair and white nightgown make her look like a child amongst the glass. I'm afraid that she'll cut her bare feet on the shards. I realize that this all for my benefit. She'll destroy herself to punish me for leaving her.

"I always wanted it this way," she says. 

She stands behind a pane of broken glass,

Beholding a world beyond her prison.

It's so lonely inside her emptiness.

Outside people are laughing and playing,

Living bright lives with glowing faces, lit

With the spark of life that she lost so long

Ago.   This was the house where she died, old and

Alone, waiting for the man who left her;

Wasn't ever coming back, but still she stays

Loyal, because he promised to make her

An honest woman, putting a diamond

Ring upon her finger, never taking

It off, belonging to her forever.

Eternity was broken with the glass.