I exist as a mirror
Wild lights have glazed over your skin
My whispers are tarnished
Our bodies a shield
Against the coming chills of a brittle wind

I linger with a breeze-like touch,
It comes out hoarse and swollen.
Thoughts  uttered with a breath of regret
Or a sigh of relief.

Your face turns foreign, a mesh of dark warmth
A light without the sun.
We’re all a wounded red
on the inside.

-


Lines border my eyes like new roads
to more distinguishing characteristics,
signifying for me many a morning frown.

I draw my face closer to the mirror to
examine them in more detail, mapping
pending destinies laid fresh like asphalt.

Traces of purple fans out from the exterior
corners, I think of them as ink spatter that
gets larger every time I endorse

a small check.

I cannot stop the runs but I can
hide the evidence with concealer
creams and foundation,

establishing a façade upon which
the viewer will find as pleasant
from just the right                          
                                       distance.

I stand back just so approximately
from the mirror to admire
an illusion of youth,

and then move forward once more
to fathom the texture
of experience—

"Maybe less this time" I think,
have I not earned the right ?


s jones
2011-2021

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