The world is a circus

           and houses attractions, attendees.

Amid it all, I am merely a house of mirrors.

           yet I draw interest with ease

All because of one random chance key;

           So many people queue up to see

           My Soul:

           The Forever Changing Attraction

 

In the room succeeding

            The mirrors are set in dusty boxes leaking with sand

            Free-standing, not one stuck in the confines of a wall

So they move.

Shuffle about in the after-hours, stack atop, sometimes unpacking the sand they carry

            Scatter it on the floor and mingle the dry desert cacti with the heaping pines

            The room never looks the same

            On juxtaposed days

            Every image here is upside down

            The natural reaction to a sudden change

Whether cold to warm

Or recognizable to brand new

 

The older the mirror,

The cloudier the reflection

But age is not all that abandons the memory to die

Suppression dissects clarity

Better than any number of years

So the reflections here

Are shattered, broken, clouded so

That light fades at the face, not to mention what it does below

The skin

How it made My Soul unclean that year

How difficult it was to throw away all that trash that I had decided

Was worth my time

It took me months to realize

Individuals are so much more than what they are grown in

Just because the soil was not where others sprouted in

Didn’t mean it was poison.

It took me months to realize

These mirrors were grimy and by that time

Going back was impossible.

So these are relics but no longer reality

 

Don’t be fooled by the dismal state before;

My life was never dismal

The lives of those around me

Those were different stories

Acts all their own

Trapeze, magician, contortionist

Acts that have since been dilapidated

Cut, burned, and slashed

To the ground

The trapeze

Glamorous in her glory days

Her mirror now fogged in smoke.

She’s unable to perform

Lest her lungs give out and she falls to her death

The magician

Long since lost her magic touch

Her disappearing doves

Turned to callous crows

Now perched on the shoulders of her lookalike mirror

Scratching dents in the perfect surface

The contortionist

No longer able to fit inside a mould

She was dragged away screaming

And has never made the return journey home.

 

As important as those people were

And how greatly they brought the circus

My world

Down in the end

New opportunities always present themselves in new light

And new acts came on to the stage.

This time, I was no audience member

On this stage, with its glass backdrop revealing all to the onlookers

No holds were barred

Creativity ran rampant

Betwixt the tents

For the first time

No mirror or door could hold me back

The whole of this sacred spot

Is a turning point.

The looking glasses here, they are

Frosted, broken,

Colored, smoking,

Glued and pasted,

Set and dried,

Nothing for the unhinged mind to hide

Here is where

I discovered who I was

Not one mirror, not even two, or three

No, I am thousands of mirrors, dozens of colors of glass

Vibrating with unspoken words

And bursting with what I have on record

A particular shape of glass

Creates an award esteemed

In my heart, not for the fame,

But for the pride

In my team and I

 

The team and creativity

Are bound as if by blood

Yet here is the pedestal

for a specific few

The mirrors here…

They appear odd, yes?

Arms and legs,

Rounded shoulders and sculpted heads

Quite like chandelier crystals hung on diamond threads

Maple-leaf red

Is the light they shed

These are those bound to My Soul unlike the others

Two are biological; two are not

This figure here

Born two years after I

Has taught me patience, and gratitude, and conditional love

A lesson that could never be retaught

Another in the corner here

Older than the last,

Older than I

Anchored down to a specific rock

Notice that gold string

It means that she is close to me

No matter how the tides sway.  

The third is not the one in the corner;

She’s a little harder to find.

Blended into the wall

She whispers a call

Reminding us not to judge

Too harsh, too quick

And to forgive.

Now to the corner,

Where the last stands

His outline glows golden,

And his eyes ring

With a melody of love

That the morning birds sing

My Soul has descended

Into my heart

Thumping, comforting,

Echoes ‘round.

I may be an attraction,

A special something to read

But try to remember

A genuine person

With thoughts, lives, and loves

is behind these words indeed