Reflections are tricky things
Man didn't create them
Only trapped them
Hung them on a wall for his own vain glory
The glassy stillness of a lake
Was first
To echo reality above it
Distorted
It ripples like a gateway
At the kiss of a stone

It calls, it beckons
l have mystery lurking
What will happen if you
Little you
Dared to pass through
With no intention of return?
One might find oneself upside down
Standing in the sky
And brushing their feet against the stars
Or there might be monsters
Real ones
Which we can touch and feel and fight
And see while fighting
The seeds of monstrous things
Separate themselves from us
In the last few seconds of life
And we see them laid out

Even knowing this
The water calls
To the nine tenths of us it possesses
Enticing us
With the idea of a world
Identical to ours
I think
Have you ever stopped
Looked
Counted the branches?
It would be impossible
So we assume

And as the water accepts you
Feet
Waist
Hands
Shoulders
Hair, drifting like seaweed in the tide
It whispers to you
Just a little deeper now
So you go on
On
Until you discover, or drown

Or
Until you are pulled upwards
Arms grasping you around the chest
As your lungs burn with the ache of tipped scales, the balance within you lost
And you hear the voice whisper
Breath warming your ear

Not like this
My friend
Not like this