Empty Potential

If my lungs could be clouds, I’d fill them with rain.

And if your lips were fire, I think I’d suffocate.

But all we are is flesh and blood and bones and skin pulled tight over our pretty souls and ugly chemicals strung together with such purpose.

We are only reflections, mirror images of surrounding energy.

Lonely and the same, lost in our glory and deceitful walls.

We share our silent habits, breaths and time and no depth.

How can two empty glasses be filled to the brim? Money is daunting; elitism terrifies us.

All the same we indulge in our spoilt privileges, dancing on parallel lines.

Maybe it’s your emptiness that draws me towards you.

A blank canvas, same as me.

The mere potential we possess unlocks daydreams and nightmares and unfelt feelings.

I find fulfillment in the idea of your sympathy and intricate understanding petrifies me, despite my craving for layers of you.

Still, you remain unaware of the complexity that could be between us.

If we crossed the shallow dividing stream, kinked our perfectly parallel lines, filled our hollow hearts and vacant souls with passion, love, hate, any emotion at all; we could create an energy, a world of our own.

by Luna Korbey, 16, Nightingale- Bamford School, United States