I wield a fist that has shattered glass, leaving in its wake

Shards strewn across the crimson splatter

lining the sink where I weep

sinking,

sinking,

sinking down into

An ocean of past blood in a War of the Worlds,

Culture bleeding through a face, shining through tired eyes,

Seeing a dearth of purpose among the jaded

While the real men and women bleed

But because I have not bled,

I am unworthy

 

Sobbing into the bathroom sink’s filling pool of water

This elixir of life feeds my body,

Composed of organic sinew pulling on the bones of

Dante,

Lovelace,

Chavez,

Beethoven,

Elizabeth I into the tome of history, while

I am torn apart between the future of promise

And the status quo of perpetually being lost

Because where do I stand? I am humbled,

Beaten down, never knowing

Where do I fit like that missing

Shard on the mirror of my face, like that missing

Land splintering into the abyss of my future

Maybe

 

Maybe

If I fill that chasm, that empty crack in the mirror,

Denying the corpse in the mirror as I scream:

I know who I am and

I don’t know who I am and

I know what I do and

I don’t know why I do it and

I no longer know where I belong and

Even worse

I don’t know where I am going

While the Hemingways and Curies seem to know

While all I could ask myself is:

How did they know?

 

I envision those crinkled eyes

Of my older self looking back from

The other side of the same mirror,

Back at his youth’s naïveté, and I look at him

With earnest, as he stares through the past

Shattering the mirror again and finding

Which shards clicks into the hole

 

And maybe not knowing is alright

Because I still wield that proud fist,

bandaged and bathed in the wine of epiphany

Dripping onto the bathroom linoleum

Reflecting my niche

Between two worlds

And thus, I turn away from the mirror

And finally face the bathroom door;

The knob is always turning

As the blood flows on