People are dying in the streets.

We call this normal.

We listen to the radio

6 o’clock

Every night.

The man on the radio tells us we are fine.

We look up to the sky and there is no sky and the sky is a vast and sprawling maw that hangs above and we cast our eyes downward and we weep.

People are dying and we call this normal.

I think I had a sister.

I think she is dead.

I think she was taken from her bed and the next day I saw little circles of flesh sinking into the melted cheese of the pizza we eat every Saturday and it tasted like familiar blood.

I think I cried.

I think I ate it anyway, because that is what good citizens do.

The man on the radio tells us we are fine.

There's a floor length mirror sitting in the corner of my room. I forget its there and honestly it doesn't need to be. It's cracked, the frame all busted, would probably leave crystal cuts of glitter all over my floor if i were to ever try to move the damn thing. But I won't because I can't-even see my reflection in it most days, my own accusing stares hidden above and to the left of bad angles and worse lighting.

Once in a nonreflective and dingy basement, my friend and I were discussing if we could fight our mirror selves, shooting a breeze we could not feel six feet below the earth. I told her she would fight her reflective counterpart and not just survive, but thrive, thrumming with victory, matte blood flooding out or rushing over any trace of something shiny. But not even the cool damp earth could hold the entirety of the encounter, the void everpresent noticeable even over the beating of the drums, the victory, her existence tinged with a loss any onlooker could not help but feel and subsequently be numbed by, just a bit worse off for taking the time to view such a sad story.

Every night I watch the girl in my window And every night she stares back. We notice the features we share Our eyes, Our mouth, Our hair. She showed me my imperfections, The cracks that run though me.

Every night I listen to the girl in my window. Her mouth moves with the rhythm of speech But no word reach my ears. I feel her though, Her fear, Her hatred, Her violence. Even in silence, Her song was beautiful. I hated her for it.

I walk down the halls of a museum

An old castle - paintings and statues and furniture surround me

There are people from the past

They stroll, converse, invite me to tea

They're all ghosts

I walk down the red carpets

Nothing here really feels old

A shiny wooden cabinet with deer, hunters and hounds

No-one seems to notice it

I walk down the corridor of mirrors

Glass is everywhere

It hangs from the walls and dangles from cellings and lays on tables

Every doorway is a mirror

I get lost

I forget the past

There is a mirror

Where it all started

There is a crack

In the mirror

It looks like a keyhole

There is a screen

At the end of the hall

There is a film

Of people and paintings

They're all in mirrors

And I run

Out of the theathre

Into a hallway

And I see statues

Their necks unnaturally twisted

Their faces painfully contorted

Their eyes on me

All the eyes on me

The paintings and statues and furniture

And the mirrors

Late a summer evening once, stars blinked like fireflies while she picked her way into the woods to search for something wise.

Among the trees, some shallow things pretended to be alive, waited and watched to see if she would manage to arrive.

Some hours past, some thicket thorns dug in and tore her seams. At long long last: the offering required for her dreams.

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