A Hall of Checkerboard and Glass
I walk forward through the hall,
a hall of lights and glass and checkerboard walls,
but it’s not forward, not in this hall.
I think I move forward, but it seems the room has changed,
the direction I thought I was going, reversed, rearranged.
I step back.
Back down to where I came from.
Back through a hallway of illusion I’ve walked so many times,
with checkerboard walls and lights of colors my eyes can’t even find,
thinking this time will be different.
I step down stairs I didn’t even know were there,
I look around and try to find where, where I am now.
I thought I stepped forward but in reality I stepped back,
is this reality, is this a setback?
Whatever, I keep walking.
Walking down the hall of checkerboard and blinding lights,
because I know if I can just leave there are so many sights,
sights I wish to see.
But instead I step down when I want to step up,
forward when I want to give up,
backwards when I finally feel I can almost live up.
Live up to what I want to be.
To what I want to feel.
To whom I want to see,
in the mirror,
before me.
The mirror at the end of the hall.
I stare in and might I finally see, myself, my reflection, staring back at me,
but not today it seems.
Instead, the mirror shatters,
the pieces clatter,
the image scatters.
I walk back through the hall, away from mirrors and reflections, and up the stairs.
I know through these walls of checkerboard and glass I get so many stares,
And I know I should try not to care.
But it's hard.
Hard when the stares are the only thing keeping me from climbing the stairs out.
Out of the hall of checkerboard and glass,
out of smoke and ash,
away from a broken past.
But instead I’m back.
I find the mirror again through this maze of complication.
But all I see there is a reflection,
a reflection of shattered glass.
Shattered glass that pierces through me, cuts me, tears me down.
Yet in the shattered glass, there is only one thing I will ever really see.
My own reflection staring back at me.