the wooden lid slamming shut on their jar,

the door judders with the force of an unsteady hand

their legs betray them,

collapsing to the ground under the crushing weight of panic

their ears ring, deafened by the noise of a screaming mind

_heknowsheknowsheknows_

__

they force their eyes upwards,

meeting those of the stranger in the mirror

that can’t be me,

they have a costume,

they have a direction,

they have confidence,

they have assurance in themselves.

the perfect me, the stranger in the mirror…

but the eyes are the same, sparking and tired.

he saw.

_does the city’s greatest hero have a name?_

__

he knows.

they crack under the knowledge,

that the one who they’d been running from had

finally. caught. up.

their lungs are shrinking, heart beating through their head, struggling to think, all the right and the wrong and the past and the future and the friends and the foes

crashing together and blurring to the same

the mask is slipping

and they still don’t know what’s beneath his.

a superhero who’s a little less perfect than they seem, or perhaps just a person who pretends to feel better than they do? hmm.