A pearl drops.
A laugh cracks.
Both begin.
One splits:
Man and mask,
light and shadow.
The other is whole,
a riotous wound
with no seams to hide.
Does Bruce see him—
the freedom of one name,
the cruel grace of one truth?
Or does he turn away,
ashamed to envy a chaos
unburdened by choice?
The Joker knows.
He feels it in the Bat's silence,
the way he lingers
on the edge of the joke.
Two lives are heavy things to bear
when one moment made them both.
Two souls,
one wound.
One binds itself in halves,
the other bleeds freely.
And in their endless mirror,
a question is whispered:
Which one is whole?
