What if its totally upside down? I mean, for all practical purposes, we don’t really know which is even “up” relative to anything but us. But that’s not the important part, how existence sees us has never really been as important as how we see existence, as how we see ourselves reflected in its glossy, shimmered surface.
We sit in front of this mirror and our eyes drink in ideas that we do not understand,
children forced to listen to operas.
We sit in front of this mirror and force our mouths to mimic tiny movements, hoping that the sounds we spill are close enough to the truth that the other eyes in the mirror nod in agreement.
We sit in front of this mirror and listen with tensed, white-knuckle focus. The kind of focus you spend your whole life putting off because meditation is hard. The kind of focus that you have to exert and struggle to maintain. The kind of focus that lets us listen, in hobbled and wanton ways, to the whispers that surround us.
Some see the sun rising, others see the darkness of the cosmos. Still more see only themselves, eyes blinking blankly back and forth into each other.
Some see a white light bathing a beautiful smile and strong, soft hands. They reach into the shimmering glass and when their hands are rebuffed by it’s smooth surface, they reach back, confident that their exploration was sufficient. Sufficient enough to know that the mirror is not only real, but that it must be all that is.
Some see a looming darkness, a tiny hole in the surface of things that seems to **** itself larger as we watch it wobble. Things from the mirror start falling in, slowly at first, and usually just things like soccer *****, socks and the occasional play-mate. Some people watch the whole mirror get swallowed into itself, they listen as the panel shatters in a hundred different ways and the glass slices outward just as the darkness consumes inward. They weep, they wail and mostly they watch a cold hand of fate reach out to touch them while all the world around their shoulders swims on, buoyant and capable.
I don’t know which of these I am. I seem to flirt with the many mistresses of myself, seduced by the slow eyelash flutter of a romanticized man. A man guilty of sins and seeking to repent, of hands that fumble but can learn to grip, of feet that plod but are desperate to fly, a soul that is chained but still proud.
I have watched the mirror for some time now.
I have heard myself screaming at it to change, or stay the same, or just ******* move.
I have seen the cracks start, spread and conjugate with each other as the web of breaking reaches out.
I have tasted the silvered slivers as they explode outward and into me.
I have felt the power of a lie, a single lie, and its ability to shatter so much.
And here, in this new stillness, there is something else,
A stranger that I have glanced across crowded rooms and packed pavillions
Over the heads of all assembled I have seen the cowl
Under the feet of all assembled I have seen the dark soles of worn boots
This stranger is an old enemy and an older friend
Never leaving, only changing form and function
only reminding of presence, never permitting a lack of it.
Death will stand near me in this mirror, her image ebbs and flows as with all reflected light. I will watch her as she takes one step and then another, leaving small, crackling footprints across the surface of my soul.
