Before the Mirror - 1. Before the Mirror

I sit before the shattered mirror and see the images it casts.

Distorted and clear all at once before me sit other images of me.

Through the cracks of glass I see a youthful me, an older me, and yet just who I am.

Images reflected back of days so long now gone are there

Happy, youthful, plays the mask that hides the pain beneath

A time of promise squandered by one who knew it not, but who gives a damn.

A spring of growing pains, scraped knees, kites flown, and bicycles.

Summers of hide and go seek and playing till the street lights came on.

Then there came a winter of hiding the bruises, the lies, and the things that were done to me.

Today I sit before the cracked mirror and look into it deeply.

I sit alone in the room of partial darkness made for me

It hides the scars both physical and emotional, for these are things that no one should see.

I smile instead into the broken glass and hide what I don’t wish to show -

The broken friendships, the loss of love, the pain of death, and the times alone.

Slip on the mask and put it all away and look instead into the future of it all.

The shots of gray reflected back are snowy white in this cracked light.

The figure looks stooped and the finger wavers in dimly light air.

I worry that one wrong move and the figure would move and fall.

He sits alone in murky light in faded clothes of yester year.

The looks milky and stare in blindness into a mirror filthy of time.

Here rests the end of all those days, a man alone before a mirror yet.

Is this the hellish future still before my poor soul that is left for me to take?

Punishment for sins heaved upon an unsuspecting soul at too young an age?

Is this what the future holds? Is this in stone writ and what time has set?

The cracks in the mirror are deep and bold, but when have done as I was told?

If this is peeks to times back and forward, I look not there but only toward

A future of change of still new chance, forget just sitting I want to dance.

Life comes but once and not again.

I looked through the cracks and found my time - not my end.