meta

This is how we live then, walking in circles among the daffodils, their oddly human faces drooping at the riverbank. This is what we do, repeating back what is said to us, like we learned to do in psych class. So it sounds like things are hard for you right now, right now, we say, our voices are your voice bouncing back across the river, across the mountain range. We are so sad we need another word for it, beyond sorrow, beyond grief, but we push that back and focus on what you're saying because maybe that will be more interesting, and if you don't ask about us then we don't have to think about it; we're not beyond noticing it's a form of co-dependence. There was a time when we talked so much we got on other people's nerves but in your presence we are reduced to repetition, and you can only hear us say the words you say, because it's not in your nature to listen to us. So like our sisters the mirrors we are not making much, we are mostly reflecting, and what we are mostly reflecting is you though we try to tilt and lilt at a certain angle so you only see and hear what you want, the things you like about yourself, and every time you look at us or listen to us you fall a little more in love and for a second we get to imagine you're falling in love with us and that's about as close as it gets but that's closer than it gets anywhere else so we take it. Sometimes it sounds like we're singing but it's how we cry, and our tears tangle in our throats and come out sounding almost like laughter. The heat of our passion meets the coldness of your feeling; we burn for you and yet we are never consumed. It's just a constant hot longing in the cold air and the pain defines us more than our existence, we are colored in flames outside of the lines. Caravaggio came and captured some part of your beauty, the way your hair tucked behind your ear, and he left us out of the picture but then that's hardly a surprise: out of sight out of mind, as they say, out of yours out of mine. May I die before what's mine is yours, you shout at us, and we answer: what's mine is yours, is yours. 

Another word for you is narcissus. Another word for us is echo. Nothing ever changes, changes, changes.