On the self defined by guilt

I see us both standing straight in the hallway, our bodies tense and heads turned away.

You look like my father. You look like me. You look like me if I were a father.

I look like— you. I look like you, but more. I look like you, but less.

If you were to get any closer, I’d suffocate.

The hallway is long and empty and we’re both very very small. I’m taller than you, but

you still seem bigger, somehow.

I know all of this without sparing you a glance.

I refuse to look. That would require me to accept what I’m seeing.

You refuse to look, too. That would require you to accept what you’re seeing.

Neither of us is willing to cross this distance.

There’s something to be said about such great rage occupying such a small space, but I don’t know what. Our bodies are cold but there’s something burning inside of both of us and it will never be set free. I have no heart just like you have no heart but we can fill the emptiness in different ways with different things and maybe that will save me from being you. You’re what I never want to become and yet I keep catching myself being jealous of the things that make you evil and if you weren’t such a failure perhaps I could want to be like you.

Perhaps I could want to be a bit more like you.

But I’m a coward like you. A bit more, a bit less. A different flavor of a coward, but still.

There is something to be said about this cowardice, but I don’t know what.

We continue standing in the hallway.