The way the looking glass lies

by Sarah Jane Souther

The milk-wash of morning 

Spills over my skin, and here 

With the mirror and my flaws

All flayed open in the dawn 

I hear voices.

Glass shatters at the sound of their waking, 

Distortion enters, and I am called,  

Alice-like, into my looking glass 

Where more than just the rules are broken 

And I fall into a pool of unwashed memories 

That want to hold me 

There was the haunted hush of every

Ugly thing I’ve ever done

There was the time he touched my hand for a greeting

And left his callousness all over me 

Until it was myself I hated instead of him 

There were the rejection letters 

And the fetters of other people’s ignorance

There were the sharp corners and the angry hands

There was the disappointment and the fresh-cut vase of dashed hopes

Sitting on the table when I woke

And the voices spoke poison into my center, 

Whispers spread wide, like dead hair in the water 

And I wish I could say I brushed them all away

But instead, I gripped them 

And the repercussions fall

In unpleasant lines 

Like scars, running like

Rivers up my arms, down my thighs 

Like deltas and tributaries

Like a hundred little floods

I’m falling into, over and over again

This place of rushing water, scars and gravity 

The cavity of self-loathing

Spiraling on endlessly 

Someone please, take my hands and rescue me 

From my seven seas of questioning

Questioning, stop.

Why am I not questioning the voices

So harsh they shatter glass

And spill oceans of doubt,

Their wake always washing me out 

In a whirlpool, spinning and unforgiving? 

And why am I obedient?

Listening 

I hear the voices that come from outside of me

Somewhere kind and soft and dry 

My mother’s tone,

Feather on my palm, she says

Do you know how beautiful you are?

And my fathers words

A firm handshake, a gentle hug

Everything’s going to be ok 

My best friend sounds like 

Salve on a wound, she says 

I’m so proud of you,

My sister, far away tin on a phone line

Reaching me still, like honey  

Your worth is worth protecting

And then, some still, numinous voice

Slipping through the immanent frame

Did you know, you are forgiven child?

The mirror takes a new shape

I see curves instead of cracks

Redemption not restrained by lack

And I think how even the truth of the looking glass

Leaves room for lies 

The exact same color as the voices in my mind 

It happens all the damn time.