Mirrors moving away

The controlling device of his life is the mirror. There in front of him so that he can assess the man he has become and assess his performance against the standard he has set - and perhaps (and probably more likely) that others have set and that he has adopted. But the mirror is not stationary. Moving away. And never there long enough for a true look into the eyes. So that even the assessment is impossible. What is it we are looking at? And so he chases, lifelong, sometimes sprinting and barreling through relationships and sometimes just a slow and lazy jog with others at his side. Like a fucking parade.

A manic. Ups and downs. Constant considerations of performance relativity. Against others and himself. Standards. Self-loathing and elation, oft in adjacence. Bouts of exaggerated sexuality - thrusting his testosterone all about - to prove his worth coupled with those of raging irritability...again, to prove his worth. Self-control is a fleeting quality anyway, mostly exercised between the ages of 25 - 35 and then forgotten for a new kind of disregard.

And so he writes:
"When you come back I will want to tell you all about all I have done and all I have accomplished - to make you proud. And so that you will recognize success. But I will then, at that instant, also have too much pride to say a thing and will not be able to tell you for myself. Opting instead to say something ordinary about how it is nice to see you again. But I will quietly watch and listen to overhear every subsequent conversation you hold with anyone who might know of me and what I have done and hope that they say something of my accomplishments in my stead. And then - when they do say something - that is when I will have gained quiet reward. And I will grin, maliciously and rabidly, right then."

---

"I wish that I had known in that first moment we met the unpayable debt that I'd owe you." You can actually hear his voice navigating the lyric. Not just carefully-chosen word after word but also his voice actually making the change from each. You can hear the transition and the empty space. They placed the microphone or some other vibration-capturing device on his vocal folds and we thus hear both the oscillations and stillness.