When I come face-to-face with you, I struggle. Your life is written large on your face, and the deep lines show who you are. You have lived, you have suffered, and you have died. Sometimes, I struggle to recognise you there. Your eyes flicker in the light, like a snake’s.

Is that the problem? Language? If I used better words, nicer words, would I trust you more…? Would we get on better? But when I see you, I see your actions scrawled across your face. Every historic sin has etched itself into you for the world to see.

I should love you – we live so close to each other – and yet, every morning, when I arise and look into your fierce blue eyes once again, I think “He can’t be trusted. He is the betrayer.” Perhaps because you are everything I wanted to be. You march in, smooth, sophisticated, and at your words, things happen. The world spins under your fingertips. Me, I am just a man. When I want to impress, I walk into doors, and say the wrong thing, and noone notices what I want.

People fall over themselves to do what you want. People queue up to watch you, to see the show, and all the time I’m screaming in my head “Why? Why? He’s an artist! He’s just a man who knows where the buttons are on the bottom of the universe, and knows how to press them. Don’t trust him. Don’t take your eyes off him.”

Perhaps that’s why I keep you so close. It’s nice to look at your ragged, stormy face, and imagine my own smooth features underneath it. To imagine me pushing those buttons, me with the people at my fingers, dancing. Would people do that for me? But then, I am weak, and you are strong. I never knew a stronger man. I never knew a man with a will stronger than yours. When you need to, you can bend the world around you, by sheer strength of will. Your belief is unshakeable. I wish I could believe like you.

I wish I were capable of the smooth arrogance that drips from you at your finest. The confidence that says “I am right. There is no other way.” and yet mollified, and soothes all opposition. How the hell can you do it? How can you treat the world like a playground? Your games. All life is a game to you, isn’t it. Nothing is serious, nothing sacred.

Even your name. When you say it, it’s a glossy name, like a pampered cat. In my mouth, it’s more effete, a murderer or a criminal. The very words we use. God, I wish I could be you at will. I wish I could wake each morning, and take your face and put it on, and be you. Charm the world. Smile, and flirt, and smooth over the roughness of the world.

I turn away, and so do you, unable to meet each other’s eyes. Why would we want to meet eyes. Those blue peepers, peering out from under your halfbrows are the only thing I recognise, sometimes. They match my own, and when I see them, I can see the similarities. I reach out my hand, and rest it against your own, as you reach out for me. Out hands meet on either side of the glass pane. I nod, and so do you. And then, in one movement, I move through the glass. With a shrug, I am you, mane of hair flying, eyes flashing.

And I am just a memory. A face unscarred, unmarked by life. Little more than a boy, who only now exists when face-to-face with his older self. I grin, and turn away from the mirror. Good morning world. No fear. No pain. Just that less than easy confidence.