She didn't like the vision of her face being so accessible to strangers. And so she moved through the world shrouded in a veil of nicotine fog.

Photo credit: Jack Davidson

It wasn't a coincidence that the intensity of her eyes didn't suit her face. She was just the outer shell containing the glares of innumerable reincarnations. Together they resembled a set of Russian stacking dolls perfectly aligned all gazing out the same opening. They were birds and butterflies and kings and slaves each reflecting their own stories of hardship and triumph.

Strangers would look up for the source of their discomfort, for the thing that caused their skin to itch.

Photo credit: Jack Davidson

People swam in other’s tear drops and wished upon the sequins of a woman’s dress they thought were stars. The flowing valleys that cut through the mountains and defined landscapes were the grooves of another’s fingerprints. The civilizations were locked inside one another in a balance so fragile impatient finger tapping held the potential to decimate thousands of civilizations. A fallen fingernail, tossed from so high it looked still, was called moon. No one knew the others existed and remained ignorant of how many layers deep the interactions went.

Photo credit: Taylor Marie McCormick