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Posts Tagged ‘mirror’

The Reflection

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
It was late evening. I was sitting on the couch, the purple one my husband made, when I felt the small tickle traveling from my forearm to my wrist. Not wearing my glasses, I held out my arm for my husband to look. “What is it?” I asked. “A tick,” he said, his voice flat, matter of fact. He pinched it in his fingers, then took it to the counter and crushed it with the bottom of a water glass. I had had a good day, listening to a woman speak about how she could still be compassionate toward her mother after years of abuse. I had gone to a dinner in honor of my husband for difficult work well done. I was proud of him and said kind and true things about how I had seen him grow. The skin where the tick had been continued to tickle. In fact, I felt the light prickle of tick legs walking on almost every part of my body. I had to take everything off. I stood in front of the mirror and saw what wasn’t there. No tick. Nor the body I once had. It was not easy to look. I asked my eyes to remember it is possible to say something compassionate, something matter of fact, something true. 
 

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What the Mirror Said

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on October 23, 2025| 14 Comments »


                  after lucille clifton
 
 
After all these years
of looking in the mirror,
you still don’t see
what’s in you. There
have been times
I wanted to shatter
into slivers so you
won’t be tempted
to trust me, but I
am not the problem.
Listen, sweetheart:
Trust yourself. Trust
no mirror could
ever know the truth
of you. There are whole
mountain ranges
of wonder inside you,
unfathomable oceans
no mirror could ever
show. Go wander
and swim in your
own wilderness
until you don’t
need me anymore.

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Reflection

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 21, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

 

We are the dust that sings.

            —Art Goodtimes

 

 

She has learned not to trust the mirror.

When she is not near it, she’s beautiful.

Here, in firelight, she knows herself

as one of many stems in an enormous

bouquet, all of them lovely. And in moonlight,

she shines along with the rest of the shining world.

And in the longest night, she is the dust

that dances, dust that sings, dust that knows beauty

everywhere it looks, inside, outside.

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