Telemachus

there are tiny spiders running up and down my spine
crawling into the dusty crevices of my unkept mind

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Odysseus just wants to get home

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I just got home from fencing. Usually, I enjoy the exercise, but today my heart just wasn't in it.

These days, I don't really feel like myself; it feels as if the real me is somewhere else - gone away on vacation or something, leaving behind nothing more than a fraudulent facsimile to fill in for him - a cheap knockoff or hollow imitation, painfully aware of its hollowness and terrified of being found out. He's not always absent though - occasionally he comes back to visit - just stopping by for a quick chat and cup of tea before he's off again to see more interesting places and meet more delightful people. When he's back though, everything is great; things just seem to fall into place, but it never feels like very long before he's gone again, and his absences tend to be dreadfully extended. Meanwhile, the bright echoes of laughter and joy that always seem to accompany him get drowned out and swallowed up by all sorts of deadlines and commitments, to the point that I sometimes question whether they ever really existed.

Sometimes, as I'm walking home late at night, my eyes will be inexplicably drawn to peer into the windows - illuminated portraits elaborating accounts of other worlds - decorating the gallery walls of dark brick and concrete that cordon off the lonely avenues on either side. Glancing into each room, certain details will capture my attention and appeal to my imagination - for instance, the sight of an oak chiffonier idling alone in the corner with white tubes of cosmetic cream laid out along the shelves, or perhaps the particular glow and tint that the light takes on from being filtered through a paper lamp-shade - and then, from these fragmented figments of vital information, I'd try to piece together, in my mind, a picture of what the actual interior looks like - but then I can't help but wonder about the sort of people that might inhabit such a space; I'd try to predict how their daily lives might play out; the sort of jobs they'd have; whether they get invited to many parties - in this way, I'd study these fictional neighbours, extrapolating their characters until I grew tired of them.

I'm not quite sure why I feel so compelled to sample and speculate upon these glimpses of other people's private lives; I suppose you could call it a mild form of inanimate voyeurism. But I think the real reason might be that I'm still looking for the real me - searching for him without meaning to - as if one day I might happen to peek through a crack in the curtains and catch him sitting there with a glass of drink in hand, laughing along with some stranger in a warmly furnished room, living some sort of comfortable and wonderful life without me.