Recover

          ---1---

I see my reflection in the facets of a great gemstone, struck through with light rosy-pink as an unfurling galaxy. The image is compounded, like leaves, mirror-faces that - no, they don’t change the world, rather, shift the world around them: I see many things, I mean, the same thing many ways: many sides, that I had not seen before, and I see my face as if I myself were not one, but many --

Let me try to explain:

          ---2---

I used to have one face;

it melted and morphed

     and watched itself always in

          disappointment, shame

     at who I was, echoing

     before and ahead of me -

a chamber of mirrors, twisting

          mazelike.  I didn’t

     know, no

          I didn’t know

     what I didn’t know;

I had only one face,

          and I saw birds on a tree

          in bleak winter as if

     holding place for the leaves,

like chairs stacked upside-down on

round tables under gleaming sunset

     and I was screaming inside

          as if I weren’t a part of them

          too: how could they

               and I exist

     simultaneously, in a world

they built for themselves?

          So I ran

     like the tears I couldn’t shed:

          don’t tell, they can’t know

          I’m weak. The face I hide

          consumes itself; how could

               another see it, really see it,

     and still smile?  I ran

a thousand miles as if I could

shed myself, escape myself but

          I only found new depths; I found myself

               drowning.  I ran

     to a place I thought no one could

          see me, but - and this is the horror

                    of my mirror-prison -

               I could see them

     and their thoughts took my face,

the face of a ghost I couldn’t forgive:

          I had come to hate

     the people who loved me

just for seeing me; there was

     a trigger-lust twitch

     like banging on infinity:

          a perfect realization

     of a hideous thing.

          My past bent

     towards my future; the

                    circle closed, and

     something inside shattered, and then

          ---3---

     I woke anew, slowly, without even

realizing, like leaves budding on a tree

in spring, the birds beginning to sing.

          A gentle strength welled up within in

     such stark contrast to the oceans

I had built for myself and

gratefulness, bitter-strong and tantalizing

     as dark chocolate rippled in me: I found

          peace in busy places, I grew

     for the sake of growth, and slowly,

ever slowly, I

               exploded into rivers and

forests, great trees and tiny living things

     and saw dimensions unfold around me

          and fed myself from the humming earth,

from time-old sunlight and flower-fresh wind

     and I saw -

                         I saw -

myself, truly, beyond my labyrinth,

     I saw a million faces shear

          around me; candle-light

          in crystal, and I loved

     and loathed and feared,

dancing, laughing, all of me:

          I accepted

     that I was all of those things, and that

     I had not one face, but many, as

leaves on a tree, present and content,

     singing in the wind:

I see myself in the mirror-sharp faces

of a beautiful gemstone, glowing radiant

     with the light of love and life

          and I breathe

          deep as oceans,

               I stand

     steady as a mountain,

          and I walk forward,

               no longer afraid.

           (completed 4/22/16 during an intensive therapy program)