A Girl and Her Dog

"Careful where you look or stare
through eyes that will break your hearts,
and open their dirty hands to your grace
those in need we will face"
-A Boy and His Kite, "Sympathy"

I was listening to this song in a quiet tim when I started thinking.

I feel like we, as a safe, well-fed, protected people, are afraid to look away from ourselves. We are so careful where we stare because of the high risk that there will be eyes staring back that will break our hearts. These eyes are not safe, not well-fed, not protected. These eyes hold so much knowledge of hurts gone by and evils still coming that we trembled withnin our heated homes, pulling our clothes tighter to our thriving bodies only registering the slavery stitched into the fabric as a faint scratch against our polished skin. Those eyes are simutaneously full of fight and full of fear, reminding us so much of our insignificance that we are the ones racked with terror. So instead we are very cautious where we gaze. We overt our eyes back to our dinners, we change the channel, and look steadiliy at our own faces in the mirror- smoothing our hair and pinching our cheeks in preparation for another day of overted glances at each other and none outside of ourselves.