The Glass Case

It’s cold on the skin. The glass of the case that holds me retains a certain cool disposition. I feel grounded in this floating box, I feel unfocused in this tiny case, I. Feel it. Closing in on me. Getting harder to breathe, wincing at the immense pain wrought upon my skin and lungs, as if I were being lit up from the inside out.

People say to imagine your body is full of a bright light hued with whatever your favorite color is, that when you do this you should feel warm and safe, as if the sun’s gentle rays were touching you from the core of your soul creating a soft blanket of comfort. Why then when I do it, does it burn? Why can I not get comfortable?

I imagine my favorite color as a burning light engulfing the entirety of my being, burning my skin from under the surface. Boiling my blood, forcing restless tendencies upon my scalding body. I then realized that whoever came up with this was obviously wrong.

I began to think… and slowly, the light leaked from my body and into the glass case I was suspended in. I felt cool again, the cold glass an old friend visiting for the summer, fleeting. The thing about being trapped inside a glass case is the fact that you are witness to life happening around you once your eyes are open, yet unable to interact with that outside world. That’s right, try to speak stupid, they can’t hear you, pound on that glass, they can’t hear you, scream as loud as you possibly can, they can’t hear you… why should they? That’s right.

Why am I in here?... no honestly… what is the purpose? Tell me what this achieves. What does this thing do, what am I supposed to do in it?

You don’t know, no one does, nor does anyone necessarily care do they? We dump the contents of our skulls into one another and trade mind juices until our thoughts are not our own and no one suspects that having thoughts of your own is the tastiest delicacy known to mind-kind. No one sees with their eyes, or kisses with their lips, we all belong to the ideas of our glass cases. Curled up and crying, wishing and waiting for the next stimulant to distract us from the cold, bitter, clear glass that we lay naked shivering on.

I think this, and suddenly feel something, that it’s not that. This.. case, none of it is do or die. I’m in here yes but who’s to say that it’s even there? Why should I be held by the restraints of something I can’t see. If I am held here within this sick entrapment why should I then be submitted to suffer and die burning and freezing in an endless cycle? A cycle promotes routine, routine promotes mindless behavior, mindless behavior promotes control, control promotes power, power promotes failure, failure promotes death, death promotes fear, fear promotes inhumanity.

This glass case I’m stuck in, it doesn’t make me human.

What defines humanity?

I don’t even know anymore.

All I know is.. We can scream, pound, and talk, but the glass case never gives.

I’ll still be stuck in here, pressed against the freezing, burning, dirty glass….