The clearest mirrors
Are the ones we cannot see
That lie within sadness, the loneliness,
And feed off of the pain
That we feel betwixt the scenes
That life plays out
For an audience which must be
Vindictive, cruel and mean
In order to clap
When the curtains drops at finale.

But we must all share something
With that ethereal audience of sadists
For it is in those moments of self-hatred
That we can most see the part
We play in this nightmarish ensemble.
It was the hunter Narcissus
That stared into the pool
And surely aroused a tumult
Of laughter,
But how sweet to be so enamored
With ourselves that we might see true
Without the mirrors of pain.
Perhaps that pool revealed to the hunter
The cosmic comedy's concealed quadrains
And in that moment he too applauded
The director's dark aims.

I too have looked into pools
Into clean metal and clear glass
And never have I had the epiphany
Of wonder that the hunter had.
But in those moments of deep despair,
Perhaps I have glimpsed
Some of myself in there.
For those without eyes keen enough to see,
The truth must be found most painfully.
And oft comes through with some of
The tomb it was buried in,
So that, knowing what is
Often makes us less comfortable
Within our own skin.

And the audience snickers
To know that in our clarity, we are still fools
And have only a tainted view of truth,
Destined to suffer on to the next miserable cue.