The Other Side of Me, a short story

There's a side of me that I don't show to friends or family,

a private part I'm sure you know, that doesn't look a bit like me.

She lives inside, a delicate sort, with ideas you wouldn't believe

she cries at night and begs and begs, "Please let me go free"

She's like a fairy, with a Gypsy's soul, no desire to stay

I know that if I let her out, she'll carry me away.

If there was a horse here, she would ride it,

a song playing, she would dance

If there was shot on the bar she'd drink it,

a cowboy, she'd take a chance.

I've been living up to responsibilities, I always do my part

but deep inside there's this other girl, and she has a gambler's heart.

If it wasn't for the debts I owe, the people I love, the friends I know

I guess I'd give in and let her out, but I don't do that, because I can't go.

The miles stretched out before us, I'd see the horizon's end,

I know that the gypsy inside of me longs for what's just around the bend.

The ache is strong and the tears are wrong, why can't I just go?

I guess the answer is in the question, I fear what I don't know...

The way she walks you can see that she has come this way before. The glass no longer cuts her feet. Her scars are sore, but they have toughened her soles. She can walk on egg shells, hot coals too, she's been doing this all of her life.

Her curling hair dances in the breeze that calls her to the other side of here. We can't see where she's going, but her path is sure, she's gone there so many times before.

It must truly be something to see, if she would go barefoot across broken glass time and time again, just to see it. What could it possibly be that draws her there.

Is it music that she alone can hear, or is it a fragrance wafting on the breeze. By the way she tilts her head, you can tell it's one of these. If you ask her what it is she'll blush slightly, smile and lower her eyes... What could it be that would make her go to see it so many times?

You tilt your head this way and that, straining to hear what she hears, or smell what she smells. You have no desire to tread on broken glass or dance upon hot coals. You turn away, let her go, and you feel a chill as if all warmth leaves with her. The fear that one day she won't return grips you at your core. You look back, want to ask if you should come too, but she wouldn't hear you, she's too far gone already.

In her absence it seems as if everything is empty and dark and cold. The idea that you could have gone too crosses your mind and you promise yourself that when she returns you will ask where she went, why she goes... You vow that next time you'll go too!

You shiver in the surrounding shadows, darker now, and darkening still. You feel as if your breath is being stolen from your lungs as if the air is thinning. Where is she, your mind is moaning, you can't see her now, she's completely gone from view.

You grow angry in her absence, how dare she just leave you without even a word? You feel as though your lips are turning blue, why would she leave you like this? Doesn't she care, doesn't she know how much you need her? How dare she make you need her so! How dare she make you weak...

You must have fallen asleep. You didn't even hear her coming, but she's here. She's returned and you are crying. Her smile warms your tears and they dry on your face as the words you rehearsed over and over die on your lips.

You won't ask her where she goes, for fear she will remember and leave more quickly.

You won't ask what she sees there, because she is so beautiful to you, that you don't want to know what could be so beautiful to her. You wouldn't walk on glass, brave hot coals for her...

You won't ask her to take you with her next time, because of how you feel when she returns. All warm, and glad and grateful that she remembered you and came back before you froze to death in her absence.

It's a fair exchange, her warmth and light for your darkness.