The masterpiece

The world is different when it’s just you and your thoughts, no distractions, no bullshit. You start seeing the cracks in the pavement, the tired eyes behind the smiles, the way the wind moves the trash around like it’s got somewhere to be. Most of it’s ugly. But now and then, something catches—something good, something clean.

There’s always this ache in my chest, like some old wound that never quite heals. And then the memories hit, sharp and fast, like a dam giving way. That’s how I know I’ve seen something real. People locked into each other’s company, really there, not just waiting for their turn to talk. The world melts away for them.

I watch it like a man staring at a painting he’ll never own. A goddamn masterpiece.

Probably deserve this. Probably had it coming. Life don’t just hand out punishments for nothing. Maybe it’s all the things I said, or didn’t say. The people I walked away from, or the ones who walked away from me. Either way, I gave up years ago, just stopped expecting anything different.

But I kept moving. Not out of hope, not out of faith—just because stopping wasn’t an option. Wasn’t how I was built. I was raised to push forward, to grind through the muck, to show up even when I didn’t want to. Quitting wasn’t in the rulebook, so I just went through the motions. Body still strong, still moving, still here. But the mind? The mind is locked up tight, closed off like a boarded-up house, keeping everything in, letting nothing new enter.

It’s funny how solitude can make you stronger. You stop needing, stop reaching, stop expecting. You learn to carry the weight alone, and after a while, you don’t even feel it anymore. But strength like that comes at a cost. You become unreadable, unapproachable, a man of stone in a world of softer things. Conversations become foreign, people seem distant, and that easy rhythm of human connection—small talk, laughter, warmth—becomes a language you forgot how to speak.

So, you sit. You watch. You let the world pass by like an old movie playing in the background of a life you’re not really a part of anymore. And when something good happens—some flicker of sincerity, some rare glimpse of real connection—you admire it the way a prisoner admires the sky through iron bars. Close enough to see, too far to touch.

A masterpiece, sure. But not one meant for me.