Drawing the curtains back
Looking out the window... was the easy part: the lace so soft half-parted like lashes to the outside, a purview safe and vast, from the yards, to the countryside, the seas and the great beyond stretching to the stars. Everything, out there, a time capsule unto itself. A mechanism fragile yet strong. Enough to catch one's breath. This sense of being closed off; a thin sliver of glass impermeable to sound or thought. All was well looking out.
...Catching sight of the hand that pulls the sash... ah, yes, it's the looking in that shatters the mind and heart.