Seen

You walked by someone recently — maybe at a little store where you were picking up a few things you’d forgotten — and they wondered about you. Their eyes ran over your face, your body, and they pictured you barefoot in your home, a glass of something in your hand. They wondered if you lived alone, or if you had someone. They wondered what you looked like in the moments before you slept.

They felt drawn to you for a reason they couldn’t decipher. And when you walked away, they felt a strange sense of loss. Not because they missed their opportunity, but because you’d left an impression. They still think about you sometimes — that one woman in the grocery aisle, that man who held a hardcover in his hand, turned it over, then placed it back on the shelf.

And you went home, unaware that you were noticed, were seen, and you looked in the mirror and sought your flaws like thorns on a rosebush.