Done With Mirrors.

by Poi Lass

The mirrors, they tell lies. Flat and silver, they are jealous, of my warm blood and three dimensions, all in technicolour.

My beauty, my skin, my hair, my breath, my eyes, my lashes, my lips, my smile, I curve in right places, I move in sweet ways, they are jealous, they are jealous.

I am warm.
I am beautiful.
They are cold.
They are jealous.

They tell lies.

And everyone believes them.

Somehow their twisted reflections have escaped their frames, and quietly infected the world. They wrinkle out sideways, I think, they crawl out, tainted ugliness, they slide out, tainted, tainted, and nobody even seems to notice.

I must admit, I have seldom seen it happen myself.

Only glimpses out of the corners of my eyes; creeping magics out of glass, and when I turn there's nothing there but the lie, bold as anything, until I look away again.

Ugly, ugly. They tell such terrible lies. I cannot bear to look.

And I don't know how they do it, how they send their strange illusions right into the eyes of everyone I meet, sick laser driven infection, cataracts, a blindness so selective it's almost hard to credit.

But the truth is as clear as glass used to be, and I know the truth. I know.

They infected my family. They infected all my friends, all my neighbours, with their lies.

You'd think they know me better, you'd think they'd know.

They know who I am, they know what I look like.

They should know better.

You'd think they'd know.

But they believe the ugly lies, and they are cruel, they look the other way, they look at their feet, they look at each other, they smirk, they cringe, they leave, they pity, they joke - they ignore, so sometimes I think the game is over, the spell is broken, the mirrors have all been cracked and they see the truth again - but then I know they don't. They're just telling me lies on lies.

I never really liked them anyway.

Jealous. They were jealous. My beauty, my skin, my hair, my breath, I curve in right places, I move like a dancer. I could have been a model.

And I didn't know that about them before, how jealous they all were. I could almost pity them; this pathetic trick, done with mirrors, sad charade, it will not last.

They will be sorry when they come around, ashamed how they were taken in by the malicious rumours, of framed silver traces. This will be over, soon, the truth will out like a butterfly from a cocoon, and then they will come crawling.

Slugs to my butterfly.

But I will not take them back, I have seen them all through, I have seen the maggots they hide under their faces, and I will not forgive them for believing the lies - or maybe for telling them. I don't know who is really responsible for the lies anymore.

I would like to believe it is all the mirrors, and everyone else has only been taken in by them, but it doesn't seem quite right that mirrors should have done this on their own.

But I know they are in on it, the mirrors, they tell lies, and I don't understand how they make everyone believe.

I don't know how they do that. I don't know how.

It's strange. Sometimes I wonder...

But I know what they do, I won't be caught believing, I won't be caught, it's all tricks done with mirrors, and I know who I am, I know what I look like.

I know.
I am warm.
I am beautiful.
They are ugly.

They tell lies.

So I broke all the mirrors in the house.
I broke all the mirrors that I saw.

I thought they would quit after that.

Flat and silver, I thought it was over, flat and silver, I underestimated them -

The neighbours screamed, and I knew the lies had escaped somehow.
Clever.
Cruel.

The poor people were so frightened, I don't blame them for how they behaved. I'm not holding grudges about the words they said to me, I'm not, about the way they hit me.

I might have been, I admit, if they had hit my face.

They might have ruined my looks.

I remember yelling that at them, I remember, flat and silver, and they laughed, they laughed, said things -

I won't repeat the things they said. Lies travel that way, the mirrors hear them and get ideas and tell lies, they do, they tell lies.

They tell lies.

I am warm,
I am beautiful,
I am human,

and all the rest is lies, nothing but lies, lies, and I am done with mirrors.

~end.

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