is it cause and effect
when you pause and reflect
through a bus window driven at night
same view in reverse
or a new universe
with a face looking back that's not right

someone faking a smile
maybe ******* down bile
with a profile of rake thin grey cheeks
once enhanced with laugh lines
circumstance redefined
in a matter of just a few weeks

lights aglow on high streets
put on show the crows feet
that don't go with a face that's within
and etched in like stretch marks
they're a sketch of the darks
from a smile that's been spread far too thin

and defined by it's anger
this malign doppelganger
has no warmth in its eye, only cold
where the dread's run amok
and has sped up the clock
left a handsome face premature old

and it leers out of space
with a queer kind of face
that might once have been eager to please
looking weathered and strained
from endeavours that maimed
through the life it spent down on it's knees

in the glare of the ights
it stares back for a fight
and the raindrops leave pock mark and scars
like a comic *******
or a cosmic inversion
or perhaps that’s the person you are?