Good Night

The mirror I have
  is never nice
 the pictures shown
(though seldom seen twice)
 never fade: I always see
     staring back
       the real me

The mirror I look to
  uses only truth
 I hide the facts
(though full of proof)
I try to run away from there
  from something
   that is everywhere

   the things I thought
   I'd never be
   confront my face
   they're inside me
   nowhere to hide, when from my mind
   no hole so deep
   I cannot find
   me cowering there
   from whom I've seen
   how old he is
   unjust and mean

   A face with
cracked and callous brow
   from hiding pain
  of others; how
    he lives with knowing;
   with all his faults
    showing
    puzzles even him.
 I hate him staring back
    and laughing so...
    so hard, so long
   "so what" he says
 I hate him knowing what's inside
    I hate knowing I can't hide.
       The hardest thing I see:
     the mirror
  for I know the one I hate the most
       is me, it's me

 If I should die before I wake
     you'll see him
   just the same as me.
     We are one mind
   though not one blood.
     One mind like taffy
      pulled between
ungrateful hands of greed


 If i should die before I wake
     break my mirror
      on my grave
   for truth is deadly
    when it can't save
   one from one's self

 If I should die before I wake
     don't pray for me
   but for yourselves:
alone, the single both of you


     Afraid to sleep
   I must beware
      one self might kill
    the other there,
     in darkness


       I hate it so
     it must hate me
      ...or, can it love
       so openly?
      Or can't it feel,
       could it be so cold
     not to care
     and leave me
   crying here with no more
   than my rightful due:
sitting in the hole I've dug


   If I should die before I wake
     don't cry for me
                 I drove the stake
   right through the good
         I used to feel
         right through a life
         that wasn't real

(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.