I’ve spent a lot of time on this side of my island,
building my mirror mazes, my mirror boxes
and my mirror tunnels, and it’s just me,
walking into myself, looking at myself,
tripping over myself. It’s just me,
consuming myself in myself, just me,
multiplying myself until I cannot bear myself anymore.
It’s just me, at angles, again and again
and all I can hear there is myself.

I’ve spent a lot of time on those beaches,
lying face down in the sand,
filling myself up to feel something, to fill something,
and then I’ve half choked and washed it away with salt water.
I’ve spent hours trailing my fingers over the erosion.
I’ve spent hours searching for the ******* washed up on the beach.
I’ve spent hours lying back on the scratchy sand,
waiting for nothing to happen.

I’ve spent a lot of time breathing in the grey while
watching the murky ocean storm and spit.
I’ve waded into the waves and let the cold numb me
and I’ve made my home there and it’s not easy then
to get back on the shore. I’ve spent too long in the sea
and now I’m cold through and I want to be colder.
I spend my days crawling back to the mirror maze,
to run into myself and myself and myself, and I know,
I know, I know, it’s bad, but I feel safer here, with
the puddles I’ve made, the mirrors I’ve put up
and the cardboard cut out I’ve got used to.

But maybe, maybe sometimes, I ought to go
to the other side of my island. The side with the promenade
and the sea so clear I can see the rocks beneath it.
Maybe, I ought to go for walks in that end of day calm,
when the purple, orange air  stretches across the waves
and the sky and is so easy to breathe in.
Maybe, I ought to spend more time there, walking until
my chest feels so full that I have to stop and sit.
Maybe, I ought to spend more time sitting and listening
to the gentle sounds of that clear, purple sea,
until I feel happiness on my cheeks, in my ears, in my chest.

And I know, I know I’ll go back to the mirror maze,
I’ll climb back inside the mirror box and go back
to watching the grey stormy sea. I know I can’t make my home
in the purple yet, but maybe, maybe I can try visiting a little more often.