She stands at the centre of the carousel,
the only point of stillness in a world full of movement and noise.
She's out of touch and out of answers
and even though she doesn't know it,
all she has ever wanted was to move at the same speed as everyone else.

She closes her eyes,
and as constellations dance behind her eyelids
she forgets herself.
She lets herself fall into the shooting stars,
the swirls of blinding light
and the magic that she can't find anywhere else.

But when she opens her eyes, she is lost again.
She is back in her fishbowl,
watching the world move in blurred lines and muted colours,
watching it change and learn and laugh and cry,
all of it the same,
all of it broken and incomplete.

So she closes her eyes again
and goes back to the spinning lights, the silence, the magic.
She closes her eyes
and hopes against hope that when she opens them,
the world will finally be hers.