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I used to be just one.
I was here looking out at you.
I was here grabbing this and examining that.
I was here feeling life within.
I was here reaching out and finding you.
Then I realised you were viewing me, and I split.
Now I was two.
A house divided.
I was still looking out at you.
I was still feeling life within.
I was still here reaching out and finding you.
But I was distracted.
Because now there was another living inside me.
It imagined how I appear to you.
No longer merely subject, I became object too.
I was me, and I was also who I thought you saw.
I was both the observer and the observed.
Gradually the subject has faded, and the object has taken centre stage.
I am now mainly what you think I am.
I am now mainly what you think you see.
I have lost me.
The subject of my story has become a detail of yours.
I am mostly the observed.
I am looking to you to tell me what I think of myself.
I am waiting for you to tell me what to do next.
I am waiting for you to write the next chapter of my life.
I am waiting for you to shape my body to your liking.
I no longer grab anything. I have stopped my enquiries.
I no longer put my hand up in class. I no longer speak up at work.
I no longer reach out my hand, but wait for you to take mine instead.
I live to please you.
And yet…
There is a niggling doubt, a vague memory, a sense of something different from long ago.
That keeps me from being the perfect object.
That keeps me failing, so I remember there was once a subject in my story.
And she is determined to re-enter the fray.
And write a different ending.
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