Echos in the Mirror

Echoes in the Mirror

Echo me back to a hallowed place,
some sacred safe-house
on the rough road to Armageddon.
I followed the rabbit hole down to drown in
linear identity:
Put me in a box and frame it,
put me in a box and frame it,
or shame me til I cave in on myself
and box myself up,
pretending that this was my idea.
Was there a soft shape to snuggle close,
a sound of winter that holds our delicate fibers together?

I was flung to the floor
when the tempest waltzed
through the open window.
We all sacrifice a few specks of soul
to the faces that stand in the sun,
glittered and deafening,
we bow to our plastic dead doll idols,
cheers from the crowds resound on the red carpet
as we smile the smiles of the shadowed and damned.

Dance in the heart of the heathen,
we shackle our masks on to our faces in the fires of hell.
After lunch with the stock market profiteers,
we make a mess of the kitchen,
tables turned over,
coffee pot stands on its head
dripping down the cabinets,
staining the rug,
glasses broken on the floor
looking like diamonds:
witness our liberation from the sunken skull generation.

Together we pant through our abuses,
our broken bones and bruised faces.
Give me a method of deliverance,
a way to understand the tormented self,
without breathing too heavy,
giving away my place of hiding.
Then without warning,
the reflection in the mirror starts talking back.