Are the Eyes a Mirror or a Gateway to the Soul?

or as long as I can remember, people have tried to name what they saw in my eyes.
It was mostly men — their words always the same:
Dragoness. Seductress. Wild woman. Untamed.
They called me fire, danger, temptation — a warning dressed as a compliment.

And yet… I was afraid.
Because I didn’t feel like a dragoness at all.
I didn’t understand why they saw it, or where it came from.
It was foreign to me — this projection of wildness, desire, danger — that others so readily read in my gaze.

Then I started thinking…it was never really about me.
It was their reflection, their projection, their fear whispered as desire.
For years, I wondered if they were right.
Maybe my eyes were only a spell, a weapon, something to consume or be consumed by.
Perhaps, I thought, eyes are just mirrors — showing only what others want to see.

And yet… I always felt it.
A quiet, undeniable knowing: that eyes are more than reflection.
That somewhere within them lies a gateway — a path to the soul itself.
A secret door, like moonlight shimmering on a still forest lake,
or a single star reflected in a quiet midnight pond.

Then, once — there was someone who saw differently.
He didn’t see a dragoness. He didn’t see desire, danger, or fantasy.
He saw the hidden corners of me that I rarely reveal, yet never hide.
He saw my soul. And he touched it.

He told me that when he looked into my eyes, it was as if I was touching his soul in return.
That my gaze was not a mirror, but a gateway — silent, sacred, intimate.
A doorway between two inner worlds, trembling with recognition.

He even described my eyes from a simple, imperfect photo:
the laughter lines etched by time, the quiet honesty,
the delicate beauty of simply being.
And he loved them — not as a weapon, not as fire —
but as a portal.

It was then I understood:
Eyes are not just mirrors.
They are gateways.
Most will never dare to cross.
But the rare few who do…
will see the soul waiting inside.
And perhaps, just perhaps, they’ll feel the quiet magic that has always been there — like a whisper of starlight in the dark.