Glass Walls

The first thing she did today
was to yank a chair out from underneath Mary
and throw her arms around the girl in thanks
then plop down in the stolen chair.
Mary laughed and got another one
while the rest of the class burst into laughter as well.
She laughed with them.

Her laughter rings through my head
but something about it was different.
It sounded hollow: tinny.

Perhaps it's just me, I think.
Perhaps that's all it is.
But I catch her,
Once and while,
with an emptiness in her eyes.
Like she can't see what she's looking at.

When I give her a light poke,
something in her moves to cover up the emptiness,
like pulling a rug over a gaping hole.
You don't know it's there until you've made the mistake of stepping onto the rug,
whose gold and copper threads were a blaring warning anyway
(because what rug THAT breathtaking would just be sitting there?)
and are falling feet first into a beautiful abyss
whose bottom you can't see.
Until you're swallowed by the animal
that is darkness.

"Is black chaos, or is white?
With white one can create anything.
But at the same time," I wonder,
"when split,
white light gives every color.
Black, on the other hand,
swallows up any color put into or onto it.
So is white the nothing and everything?
Or is black the everything and nothing?"

"I like grey.
Because it is just ugly.
There is no other side.
It just is what it says it is."
She whispers in reply.

And suddenly I see her standing at the edge.
Her hands hanging at her side.
And when I reach out to grab her wrist,
she has already fallen.