He looked in the mirror and thought he knew

Who he was: a person who was solid, outright

And had a true view on his own mind.

Sometimes some unpleasant thoughts

Crawled into his mind...

Oh, well, but you can always keep them shut,

Isn't that right?

Interesting was the fact

That he looked at his reflection in the glass

And couldn’t grasp what emotions he had,

Nor could he understand his feelings at times.

Because he shut them for good or scared them all away.

These tiny little beings – they were various in types.

They scattered in the place everywhere they could,

But like shadows they hid under the reflection of light.

He was inspired at times to catch them by their tails,

To know what they were

                    and maybe add to his apprehension.

But now and then, their shapes would twist and turn,

Too vile to keep, too haunting to discern.

He looked at them with a daze, but didn’t want to accept.

And they, on their part, didn’t want to interact.

So they just stopped at that until one day one being appeared,

faltered toward his side to see if it could

                        glimpse a tiny bit of a place inside.

It approached him quietly, and quite unexpectedly,

Without being caught, from a blind spot.

So when he noticed its appearance,

He couldn’t deny its occurrence in his world.

The little being looked with the timid expectation in his eyes,

Asking to be accepted, to be a part of his life.

It was tempting for sure: to have love for oneself,

But too insecure for his self-mirror to bear his own self.

He was in conflict inside: what to do, how to decide?

He wanted to accept it but also to hide it from the sight.

The creature was scared like all the others before,

Because it didn’t know what to expect, it didn’t want to be locked.

It started to retreat and was almost aloof,

When he noticed that the being was running away from him for good.

He rushed after the thing, but wasn’t agile to see

That the mirror was beside and pushed it to the side.

With fear in his eyes, he watched it fall,

How it smashed on the floor and broke with no remorse.

Its fragments were scattered all over the floor...

Now how, without the mirror, he could know 

                                    the right image of his own soul?

He tried to figure out if something could be saved

By collecting the pieces and putting them the ‘right’ way.

When the creature returned, looked into his eyes,

And showed him the glimmer of a new way for him to decide.

Through the shards of broken self he glimpsed a corridor

Lined with mirrors of oneself, each alive with light.

His reflection shifted on their surfaces, even multiplied –

A universe full of various selves he was yet to explore.

With this he realized it wasn’t about his soul,

He always had it all in, just didn’t want to see the whole.

The angle of the broken mirror

provided a narrow impression

That had once  been his salvation

because he didn’t know

That one step was needed

To bring him

to a better pole –

a compass to guide his ever-shifting whole.