Something Better Left Unseen

I watch them through the cracks in my blinds during the day. Families laughing on their porches, kids racing their bikes down the street or tossing a ball back and forth. I watch the sweat glisten off the back of a man mowing his lawn. I watch a woman’s skin turn golden as she’s kissed by the sun, tanning in her backyard. I see all of them as I watch from this house my parents abandoned long ago. My father died years back, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. My mother still comes sometimes, but she never stays. She tosses groceries over the fence like she’s feeding something dangerous. On special occasions, like every other few birthdays, I’ll find a letter folded neatly on the front step. Her words are always distant, practical, but her message never changes; I’m something better left unseen.

I don’t leave during the day. I wouldn’t dare. Only after midnight, when the world feels emptied and the air is cool and quiet, do I step outside. Balm makes that possible. Thick, greasy, and foul-smelling, like burnt pennies. It coats every inch of my body, swabbing the folds of my flesh. Without it, the cracks deepen, splitting me apart until I bleed and rot where I stand. The balm stings, but it works. It lets me move. It allows me to wander. Barefoot, I roam the neighborhood streets, my fingers trailing over fences and mailboxes as I imagine what it would feel like to be part of their world, to sit at their tables, to call their names… to be wanted.

Sometimes I stop at their windows. I stand in the shadows, watching them as they sleep. A child curled on a couch under a patchwork blanket, a couple tangled together in bed with their faces peaceful in a way mine could never be. They look so at ease, as if the very air they breathe tells them they belong. I press my hands to the glass and imagine stepping inside. The warmth. The laughter. The way they might look at me with something other than disgust.

Last night, as I stood in the shadow of a house at the end of the street, a little boy saw me. His small face pressed against the window, his hand rising to meet mine on the glass. He didn’t scream, didn’t run. His eyes, heavy with sleep, looked into mine, curious and unafraid. For a moment, I let myself believe. I pictured sitting beside him, helping him build towers out of blocks, reading to him, tucking him into bed. I imagined him laughing with me, maybe even calling me brother. Maybe Dad.

But then the light in his room flicked on, and my reflection bloomed in the glass. The sight of myself, patches of oil glistening over peeling, chapped skin and cracks leaking faint trails of pus, ripped the fantasy away. There’s no way anyone could want me. No way anyone could love me. I stumbled back into the darkness as his mother appeared, pulling him away from the window.

I ran, each step deepening the crevices in my skin. The salt in the night air burned where it touched raw flesh, and by the time I reached my house, I could barely move. Back inside, I smeared more balm over my wounds, but it wasn’t enough to fill my loneliness. It never is.