Good days
The mirror tells me I’m beautiful today
I smile and stop and smile again
There are no words on my page
For peace and joy are so annoyingly free
They hate being stuck inside words
I search for synonyms and iambic meters
But this feeling
Of floating in silence
Of flying inside the confines of a room
Of smiling for no reason
Of dreams of pink balloons
Of dancing without a song
Doesn’t have enough words
Instead the clarity of it is like a veil
A filter for my unslept eyes
A yellow painted on canvas
Surrounded by blue Irises
The mirror tells me I’m beautiful today
I’m a fierce force of nature
A superhero saving my world
With grace softly perched on my breasts
And glory holstered on my hips
Today, the mirror says, I’m invincible
And today, I agree!
Bad days
The mirror is an abyss today
Inside it, my eyes aren’t my eyes
They’re hollow ghosts stuck in time
My body is a loaded garbage bag
Self loathing, Hate – reduced, reused, recycled.
I stand here naked but for my breath
Stale air engulfing my breasts with each exhale
Embalming me with funereal ease
Enraged fists break into my palms
Ears split with screams stuck inside my glass head
The dark room spreading its wings, I know.
I’m triggered today
A loaded gun inside a black mouth
A bomb waiting to blow
A woman on a ledge
A blind knife on a barbwired skin
A neck exposed – waiting to be eaten by a noose
The mirror is an abyss today
I can feel my breath turn to dust
I can hear the imaginary stones grinding my chest
The bed is a casket parked inside an open grave
Do all rooms in high rises feel this way?
Nearly dead humans subsisting in each square
Windows like tombstones that say
Insignificant and Unknown
(3rd Sep 1986 – Every fucking day)
