The Look

There's an old saying...that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Now in acting and performance art, they teach you that most of your emotional performance can be achieved by manipulating the audience into believing whatever you want them to believe, simply by capturing the feeling you want them to see inside your eyes. What they don't teach you or even remotely prepare you for, is how powerful the emotions in the eyes can be, especially when those strong feelings are directed at you. While it started innocently, just with a random glance, developing into a snaring gaze capturing all of my attention, building into a dangerous stare, leaving the both of us open and vulnerable, shackling both our hearts, leaving us both open to attack, no weapons, no armour...just a look.

But something about my look and something in my eyes told him the message deep within my soul long before I was ready to deliver it. And the more he read it, the more he sank deep within himself, and there I saw it...the look...watching him drift further and further away, deeper and deeper backwards into his eyes, losing himself in the darkness of his own regret, his heartache, his hopelessness, his longing...but nothing prepared me for...the look...a simple look...a look I feared...just eyes, saying one word...DISAPPOINTMENT. An no, nothing prepared me for that, the moment he gave the look of disappointment. And just as I was knocked down, standing 10 inches from a man, yet feeling so far away from him, staring back into an empty space, deep within his soul lost somewhere in his eyes, he knocked me right back down, after breaking the news to him, he did the harshest of things...he slowly sank his eyelids shut...like a bulldozer digging deep into my soul, a grave for the human spirit...bulldozing the hope right out of my heart.

No, they don't prepare you for the simple things left deep in the eyes...the look. It's easier when it's all those good things, like Joy, Happiness or even Excitement...but when it's Heartbreak, nothing is more dangerous and painful than a heart-wrenching, heartbreaking, disappointed...Look...