In My Skin (freewrite)

Your voice filters through the walls and I stop. I no longer know where I was going, I no longer find myself in the steps laid out before me. Faces stare at me. Eyes. Empty. They don't know me, and yet they know you vaguely. Even worse, they don't know us. Or the us that might've been. Because that's all there is, isn't there?

A you. A me. And 'us' lost somewhere, in the in between, invisible to all eyes, except for you. Except for me. Or yes, perhaps only just for me. Because now, you no longer see me. I hear your voice, but you can't see my face. You don't know I'm here, close to you, hungrily (desperately) breathing in this air that you breathed out. Why does it matter?

No, I suppose it doesn't. I should leave. People are looking at me. They know I shouldn't be here, close to you. And how can I tell them I never meant to? That I didn't know I could come in here and hear you. And feel...weird. Like I'm intruding. Am I intruding?
Would you push me away if you could see me down here? Would you be secretly glad? Do you maybe see me through the floor of your glass castle? Feel me beneath you, my hands so cold now, reaching up to touch you, to feel you.
You're here. I heard you and I stopped moving, like invisible arms holding me close.

Hello.

And I say 'hello back', but you don't hear me, and I wonder maybe if that hello was meant for me after all. Maybe it was just some empty greeting, offered to the air or the guard to your palace. They don't look like you say 'hello' to them, though. They look like they don't even know who you are and I wonder how can that be? When they serve you, protect you up there, from your cold vantage point.

I look up, briefly. I can't help it. I keep thinking what if you look down right at that second and catch my eye? And maybe say hello to me?

But you can't do that, can you? People don't say 'hello' to folk like me. I hear you, but you don't see me. And I'll always hear you and you'll never see me, no matter how many times I reach up to you, or how many times I peek at you through the floor. I am buried here, under your glass castle. stopped my trot forever, just to listen to your voice.

Hello there. Hello.

I'll never say hello to you, but in the darkness, whisper your words to myself. Cherish them, until you speak again.

This is a 5 Minute Freewrite inspired by the prompt 'trot' given by @mariannewest (thank you, Marianne).

And thank you for reading,