Pygmalion

In the quiet places of the heart, we often craft our perfect lover from the fragments of our own desires and reflections. But what happens when the mirror cracks, and we are left to face the emptiness we have built ourselves? The story of love is not always a union, but a haunting of what could have been, and a longing for what we were never meant to find.

I never understood it better than now—

how growing up shapes the way we see the world.

If you move among a certain kind of people,

their colors seep into you,

and soon, you paint the entire world in their shade.

To someone who has never stepped outside their cocoon,

the idea of a harsher wind feels foreign.

They cannot imagine the world isn’t wrapped

in the same softness they’ve known.

We are mirrors, holding up what we are,

casting it onto the faces of strangers.

If you’ve ever drawn blood,

if you’ve ever plunged the knife deep,

you’ll always fear the echo—

you’ll always look over your shoulder.

But those who’ve never held a blade

walk unguarded through the crowd,

blissfully unaware of the shadows.

Only a thief spots a policeman in a sea of faces.

Only the guilty smell guilt in the air.

And the one who wronged you

will always suspect you wronged them first—

Accusations become a reflection,

the subconscious spilling truths the ego denies.

Projection is a sly and silent thief.

It steals reason and leaves only the self,

reflected again and again.

I see it now—

for years, I loved a man who did not exist.

A perfect lover, a soulmate carved from my own reflection.

He loved like me, saw like me,

was devoted to me, was mine, was made for me,

because he was me.

No one else was ever in the room.

I loved my own reflection in the mirror,

gave him a name,

breathed life into him,

called him by my lover's name,

until I realized all this love only came from myself,

draped in the disguise of another.

Is this how Pygmalion wept,

holding his perfect woman of stone,

aching for her to wake and love him back?

But unlike Pygmalion,

my statue will never step off its pedestal and tell me he loves me the way I do.

My perfect man will never be real.

Someone else now exists in this world with his face and name,

But he's not the same

Because he doesn't have my essence in him.

Because I didn't create him.

He didn't sprung into existence

Because I painted him with my own world and imagination.

And maybe that’s why they say

you must love yourself first—

not out of vanity,

but because only you know

how you ache to be held,

how your heart needs to be seen.

The world is a prism,

but we are the light refracting through it.

No one sees you,

not truly,

not without the colors of themselves bleeding in.

I wish there were a way out of this.

To stop loving what isn’t there,

to let go of the dream I shaped with my own hands.

The clay of the man I molded and created

And wept the day I realized he may be perfect

But he doesn't have life in him.

The most beautiful sculpture will never come to life despite its perfection

And perhaps because humans aren't made for perfection.

But every breath feels heavy with the weight of waking,

every sunrise a quiet ache,

a reminder I am still living but my creation does not.

But there is no one to tell this story to

Because they would say if it wasn't as it was why not search for what you want

And you hold back the urge to tell them

You don't want to be loved by your perfect statue

You want to be loved back by the one you love, who has a beating heart,

You just want to be loved the way you love.

What is it to be the last unicorn in the world?

Is it a gift to love so rare,

or a curse to be live with the loneliness it comes with?

© 2024 Inaba Tarek