Pride is a mirror, fractured in the storm,
Humility a quiet stream where softer shapes are born.
Envy climbs the ivy walls with jealous, reaching hands,
While Kindness scatters petals wide, across the broken lands.

Wrath is lightning in my chest, a drumbeat without end,
But Patience threads the hours slow, a message stuck on send.
Gluttony devours the night, a mouth too full of flame,
Yet Temperance restores the air, a balance in the game.

Lust moves like wildfire, waxy heat against the skin,
While Chastity is porcelain, unmarked by where I’ve been.
Greed clutches silver shadows, hoarding what will fade,
But Charity gives freely, like the light the moon has made.

Sloth lays heavy on the ground, a weight the earth can feel,
While Diligence keeps marching on, her footsteps forged in steel.
I walk between them trembling, their voices in my spine,
A body full of shadows where I'm torn in two sides.

The mirror shows a hidden face,
A shadow trapped, I can't erase.
Whispers echo down the hall;
Why do you plan for my fall?

Mirror, mirror, cruel and kind,
You know the secrets I try to hide.
Lock them up and forget the key,
Mysteries staying between you and me.

A thousand years behind the glass,
I watch the future, mourn the past.
The girl I was, the ones I’ll be;
They linger here, looking back at me.

Mirror, mirror, cold and wide,
You hold the tears I’ve tried to hide.
I see her there - she looks like me,
A girl I lost to memory.

The compass spins beneath your touch,
A trembling needle, sweet but wrong.
North fades away, craving too much,
South humming your name in foreign song.

Your laughter drips like melting wax,
Stinging my skin, I let it scream.
We kiss in rooms where shadows pass,
And call it love when it’s just greed.

The path curves on, the stars look pale,
Each sign we pass is written twice.
Your hand is warm, your stories stale,
But I still gamble on the dice.

If stars were mine, I’d spend them fast,
On one more kiss, slow-motioned and true.
But darling, broken glass cuts deep at last,
And still my heart points back to you.

I found a bottle on the shore,
Sealed with wax and midnight lore,
Inside, a letter wrapped in lace,
My past life's tears in cursive grace.

"Dear future me," the ink began,
"Still chasing ghosts in sinking sand?
Did your dreams survive the mind wars,
Or did you lock it, slam the door?"

She warned of boys with eyes like flame,
Of hidden hearts that play the games,
Of dancing too close to the edge of the moon,
And humming heartbreak far too soon.

“Don’t trade your soul for carousel lights,
Don’t marry silence, it bites at night.
Keep a bit of the youthful air of innocence
It adds to your confidence.”

I read it twice swirling with the tide,
That bottle shook with every line
I’ve told myself to make it through,
But she knew me, and I knew you.

So I wrote her back in ocean ink,
Let my thoughts drift as I think:
“We lived in ruins, kissed like crime,
But ****, we danced so well through time.”

And so I let that bottle drift away,
To find the girl I used to play,
Before the bruises turned to art,
And we forgot the shape of heart.

I ride the carousel, round in my mind,
Each figure a name I swore I’d forget
A sardonic grin on the face of time,
Spinning through kisses and cold regret.

He whispered in lust making false vows,
Then vanished into the dark of night.
The shame still stains my silence now,
A bruise that blooms beneath the light.

Another wore dreams like a cheap disguise,
Painted in promises, glossed with gold.
But the facade cracks beneath his lies,
And love runs dry when hearts grow cold.

They repeat like haunted tunes,
Ghosts dressed nice, soaked in sin
A dance beneath a distant moon,
Where every ending dares begin.

Still I continue, I never learn,
Addicted to the aching thrill
To love that sours, to bridges burned,
To wounds that beg to open still.

A hallway of mirrors, endless and cold,
Where love’s reflection bends and breaks,
Each step a memory, bought and sold,
The pieces of us that time forsakes.

The glass distorts, my face in tears,
A smile that fades, then comes again,
I walk through moments, lost in years,
Where every joy is prefaced by men.

You whisper softly from a distant frame,
But your voice is just a fleeting sound,
Our love’s a song that’s lost its name,
A record spinning round and round.

The glass reflects a broken face,
Eyes that once shone, now cold and thin,
I walk in circles lost in space,
Trapped in the places you’ve never been.

The hallway stretches, never fun,
Mirrors repeat what we've become,
Distorted truths, no place to run,
Forever trapped in what's undone.

The mirrors stretch, no light, no grace,
Repeating all that's been done and said,
A love that left without a trace,
leaving only shadows in my head.

If they would ask me,
I’d write a secret summer track
About the way you move to slow jams;
Revolving soft like a vinyl spin,
Eyes have me lost,
like a strong glass of gin.

I’d pen the bridge in twilight ink,
How we met when the stars began to sink.
A moment too pretty to forget,
Laced in smoke and steamy silhouettes.

The secret’s simple and stitched in lace:
It’s just that I love you
Through all of space.
And when the world's ending light is discerned,
The galaxy will learn
How two phantoms loved and burned.