Glass Box

I am walking down a road of life.  I have been walking for quite some time now.  Sometimes it has been sandy and hard to walk in, sometimes easy and flat, sometimes so rocky that it hurts.  Sometimes I’ve walked at an easy pace, but most of the time I’ve been running, eager to get ahead, but it never seems to get any closer.  And though I’m tired, it seemed I’d finally gotten there.

I could see my destination; the tall young man with a smile on his face.  I ran to meet him…but…

I have run into something.  A glass wall.  All around me there are glass walls.  I am trapped.  What I want most is on the other side, I can see him, I can hear his voice…yet I cannot reach him.

I pound my fists into the barrier, using all my strength to try and break it down.  He helps me, and together, we strike the wall again and again and again…but it only seems to get thicker.

Every day I pound my fists against the walls of my glass box, more than desperate to get out.  I can see, hear, and feel everything I want outside, yet I cannot get to it.  Every day, I scream and I cry as my hands get tired and begin to hurt more than the day before; inside my head emotions rage like a thousand violins screeching, hitting every note at every level simultaneously, yet no one hears. 

I feel the fire every day.  My anger and my frustration turn into a flaming force of rage, and I want to shriek and burn the wall to the ground and tear apart the pieces.  But I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and swallow it.  Fire is dangerous.  Fire kills.
Yet every day the heat intensifies, and the pressure builds.

“What’s wrong?” they all ask. 

I want to yell at them that I’m trapped and I can never get out like a bird in a cage, only wanting to fly away; that I’m suffocating and I’m tired and I can’t try anymore…but I can never tell them that.  I have to be strong…I have to be.  Instead, I smile, saying, “Nothing.  I’m just tired.  It’s been a long day.”

Only some see.  Only some see the tears that were in my eyes last night, and yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.  They try to help…they try to help from the outside, but the walls thicken even more.

Most don’t see.  They look through the walls as if they weren’t there, and say, “You’re eyes are so beautiful!”

Not to me, I want to tell them.  Every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I only see the anger and the tears …no beauty.  Only despair.

The only thing that keeps me alive is the sun above, always shining brightly.  The day gives me the dream that someday the glass will weaken, and that he will break through it and reach me, sweep me up in his arms, and hold me forever.

Fairy tales always have the girl needing to be rescued by her true love, and they live happily ever after.  This is not a fairy tale, and I don’t know how it ends.  I just hope I don’t fall from my tower before someone can rescue me.