Insanity

Shiny and awake, always awake. Twitching in the darkness behind your thoughts. The glance that sees through walls you can't see and knows you better than you know yourself. You can feel it crawling under your skin, digging into the tender tissue of your privacy and sanity. Veins trace red symbols on the whites—accusations written in blood, memories you never told anyone about now laid bare and cut apart. Every secret you tried to hide comes out. A list of all the weaknesses. Every fear turned into a weapon. You are nude, clear, and a specimen that has been pinned and labeled. When you blink, your lids get caught and don't move. Unable to move. You want to look away, but you can't find a place where you can't see. The barrier between you and others disappears. You forget which thoughts are yours and which ones someone else puts in your head. Paranoia turns into reason. Trust turns into death. Reflections grow, multiply, and spread. Your eyes are within their eyes, and their eyes are inside your eyes. It's an endless cycle of watching. You can't determine where you stop and the observation starts. The golden iris flames like a fever or insanity. The look itself takes the place of you. Now we are all ghosts, haunting ourselves. The self falls apart when it is always being watched. The amber light kills authenticity. What is left is performance, obedience, and the slow death of independence. Just eyes. Just fear. Only the destruction of what we used to think of as private, holy, and human.