the things we do to ourselves when no one is looking

it's unavoidable, but it is what it is.

i've spent the past three days comparing myself to someone who i do not know. this girl exists in a realm beyond reality. she is unique in that she will forever be better, faster, stronger, smarter and undoubtedly more beautiful than i. she is invincible.

this girl i hope never to meet would never be described as a girl, but a woman. she will have perfect skin and her upper lip will be soft. she will walk through life having fun, and being light and being just right. not perfect, no, but invariably she will have endearing flaws.

we should never meet. we should never cross paths, or share space and time. she and i will probably never find the same meter of sidewalk at the same moment. but it does not matter. because she has touched my life, inadvertedly, she and i will forever be bound by the string that my insecurities weave. she will walk the world without knowing that she is envied, she will never know that i have erected a shrine to what she probably isn't.

she does not know it, but she is a heavy charm that hangs around my neck.

i wonder if she feels it, cities away.

i wonder if it also burns her.