you don’t know me.
even if i stood before you,
even if my breath
warmed the same air,
you would not see me.
yet you turn my gaze
toward the window
you prefer,
pointing and insisting,
look there.
but the view you guard
is carefully arranged —
curated shadows
hung neatly on a wall.
i am looking
somewhere else.
i see the unedited world:
the crooked light,
the imperfect lines,
the wandering roads.
you ask me
to see as you see.
but i cannot live
inside someone else’s story.
you don’t know me.
and perhaps
you were never meant to.
© 2026 Corvalya
Reflection
I have learned that people often carry a story about who I am.
Sometimes that story becomes so familiar to them that it turns into a window they keep pointing toward, certain that if I would only look there, I would see what they see.
For a long time I tried.
But the view waiting for me was somewhere else — beyond the careful arrangements and the shadows hung neatly on the wall.
A life cannot be lived inside someone else’s story.
Others may tell a story about me.
It is simply not the one I am living.
I invite you to read the poem again.