1. There’s a mirror hung up on the wall. Did you know Medusa was cursed to never look people in the eye? What a tragedy – don’t you think she craves eye contact? All she wanted was to be seen. After centuries of lingering and wanting, she stares at herself in the looking glass, intent. The gods refuse to grant her this death wish.

2. The stage – or the pedestal – encourages us to keep our eyes trained on whatever’s happening under the limelight, centre stage. Turning our attention to the grand act. Turning a blind eye to whatever’s happening on the sidelines – the scurrying, the movement around the side of the stage, the conductor below, and around us in the seats, even in the gallows. Trained only to look forward – life, a linear thing; history, irrelevant or too far past to think about. You blink once and you’ll miss it. We forget to turn to look the puppeteer in the eye.

3. I scroll through my social media feeds, I reply to an email, I use google to find a food item I’ve been craving all day. I look up the meaning of life, or if there is one, all the while feeling like someone is watching my every move, taking notes. We tape little stickers over our laptop cameras, just in case – but our digital footprint is fair game still, I guess. We don’t see them the way they see us.

4. We’re all chasing some form of attention – or really, just wanting to be seen. Not in our bull-in-a-china-shop moments, but in the quietened ones, when we’re mid-way through our sentence and interrupted in a group, when we’re a bit quieter than usual, when we’re under the sun, staring at clear blue water, wondering what it all means. We want someone to catch and hold our gaze. We don’t want to turn our heads and look away and feel like they caught a diluted version of us.

5. Now, we gaze at the stars and hold hands. I can feel your eyes on me, but I don’t turn to look at you. I don’t know if we’re there yet. Or, I don’t know why I can’t meet your eyes anymore. I’m sorry.

6. Contempt is a self-fulfilling beast. A living, breathing, growing thing, soaking its way into moments of what should have been joy. A side glance here, a roll of the eyes. Leaving no mouths upturned.

7. You want an eye for an eye. I’d like to keep mine where it is, thank you.

8. You try to rewind the tape (not as smoothly as you would have liked). Memory is a funny thing – and yours is a haphazard, jumbled up mix of what you wished and what you feared to see. Things are never the second time around. And you can never go back.

9. Every time I walk away, wondering if it’s the last time, I count my steps. I draw my breath. I do a terrible but good thing. I fight the urge not to look back.