Jan 2019
My relationship with mirrors is strained.
When I look I usually see what's probably
myself. I look better, probably, than before
when I slept no more than
3 hours every night
and spluttered through life
choking on words and stumbling over
misconceptions.
Now all of that is merely a buzz
trampled by a maximum dosage of meds
that let me function in life
but make everything a bit numb.
I much prefer numbness to personal nihilism.
Other times when I look in the mirror I
don't see much of anything.
When I'm in public and
the innocent looming presence of others
threatens my mind's fragile ego,
I see them abstracted in my periphery,
their glinting knives of eyes
sparing me a passing glance
(She's just smiling politely,
but my skewed eyes glimpse
faux teeth and behind them gargled, ****** judgements. I don't judge the digust.)
and I skim over a transparency
of myself in the mirror.
Too bad I can't actually disappear.
(Or maybe I can.
But I try to stray a little farther from those thoughts.)
Sometimes I feel heartbreakingly
ugly in that mirror. Lonely. Unwanted.
Even with all those doting eyes on me.
I feel relied upon for something. To be
the one who makes them laugh. The one
who fills the silence. The one
who works hard even with setbacks.
(Do they even expect that of me? Or do I?)
When
in reality
I'm none of those things.
Not truly. Not really.
Theres always that tug of opposition in me,
that feeling of ingenuity, a touch of facade.
But I don't want them to see an ugly side.
The side that mistrusts violently,
that lies stagnant with thoughts screaming.
Clamming up in the face of oppressing quiet.
The side
that rears its head when
they look a little too close.
Maybe it's my truest self, that broken side.
I wouldn't know. There
are too many walls. I can't even break them
myself.
Or maybe I've broken them all,
but I'm blindfolded,
feeling around an abyss with my eyes
wide open,
vision obscured by skin-tight fabric.
I could just,
untie that knot behind my head,
spiral further and further down--
just to feel something else--
But it's safer in this uneasy emotion.
I dont know if I'll ever find myself in
the mirror again.
When I look I usually see what's probably
myself. I look better, probably, than before
when I slept no more than
3 hours every night
and spluttered through life
choking on words and stumbling over
misconceptions.
Now all of that is merely a buzz
trampled by a maximum dosage of meds
that let me function in life
but make everything a bit numb.
I much prefer numbness to personal nihilism.
Other times when I look in the mirror I
don't see much of anything.
When I'm in public and
the innocent looming presence of others
threatens my mind's fragile ego,
I see them abstracted in my periphery,
their glinting knives of eyes
sparing me a passing glance
(She's just smiling politely,
but my skewed eyes glimpse
faux teeth and behind them gargled, ****** judgements. I don't judge the digust.)
and I skim over a transparency
of myself in the mirror.
Too bad I can't actually disappear.
(Or maybe I can.
But I try to stray a little farther from those thoughts.)
Sometimes I feel heartbreakingly
ugly in that mirror. Lonely. Unwanted.
Even with all those doting eyes on me.
I feel relied upon for something. To be
the one who makes them laugh. The one
who fills the silence. The one
who works hard even with setbacks.
(Do they even expect that of me? Or do I?)
When
in reality
I'm none of those things.
Not truly. Not really.
Theres always that tug of opposition in me,
that feeling of ingenuity, a touch of facade.
But I don't want them to see an ugly side.
The side that mistrusts violently,
that lies stagnant with thoughts screaming.
Clamming up in the face of oppressing quiet.
The side
that rears its head when
they look a little too close.
Maybe it's my truest self, that broken side.
I wouldn't know. There
are too many walls. I can't even break them
myself.
Or maybe I've broken them all,
but I'm blindfolded,
feeling around an abyss with my eyes
wide open,
vision obscured by skin-tight fabric.
I could just,
untie that knot behind my head,
spiral further and further down--
just to feel something else--
But it's safer in this uneasy emotion.
I dont know if I'll ever find myself in
the mirror again.
