Io! Maestro dell'essere,
mente a scacchi,
pronta a muovere la prossima pedina
con apatia e ordine. Ordine.

Non implorerò, mai, di avere
un nuovo paio di occhi
che non vedano in bianco e nero,
magari solo meno ingenui, idioti.

Ormai non mi vedo più nello specchio:
spalle, alzate.
Schiena, inarcata.
Capo chino. Pietoso. Indegno!

** già tutto quello che mi serve:
mani di pietra e velluto,
una fronte, rugosa, che parla,
risate tra il folle, e il nobile. Nobile.

///

Me! Master of being,
chess mind,
ready to move the next pawn
with apathy and order. Order.

I will, never, beg to have
a new pair of eyes
that do not see in black and white,
maybe just less naive, idiotic.

I no longer see myself in the mirror:
shoulders, raised.
Back, arched.
Head bowed. Pitiful. Unworthy!

I already have everything I need:
hands of stone and velvet,
a forehead, wrinkled, that speaks,
laughter between the madman, and the noble. Noble.

She walks up to me curiously,
Head-tilted; her innocent eyes stare into me.
Constellations on her face - I count one, two, three blinks followed by a grin.
A child sees herself for the first time.

Now she’s taller, her face a little broader
she looks into me;
a smile replaced by a frown, she pulls back
inspecting every line that marks her skin

then returns with paint which she brushes over her skin.
It marks her eyes, her lips; her cheeks
full of pink as she admires her work.

The paint never washes off, you see, it stains.
She returns to me regularly, rivers of ink running down her face,
her eyes clouded; the illusion of beauty hangs in the air.

Society’s product stands before me, reflections of her.

-thelostpoetjournals

He said I always make things worse.

I traced our last conversation
inside my lip with my tongue,
until it burned like citrus.

My teeth still taste like that night—
miso soup, metallic coffee, a dare—
and the word “almost” said until it split.

I don’t start the fires—
I just know how to fan them
so the smoke spells mine,
so the ashes spell proof.

“You’re welcome for the mirror,” I said,
then, “You flinched first,”
like scripture I was tired of reciting.

He called me a problem
and then prayed for something exciting.
Well, God listens.
And she’s been on my side lately.
(And sometimes inside me.
And sometimes wearing red.)

You say I write like it’s a weapon.
But you brought a sword to my poem.
You heard me speak—and called it war.

I’m not the plot twist.
I’m the motif.
I’m the whisper that keeps showing up
even when you don’t name it.
Especially when you don’t name it.

You wanted a girl who could break
without getting any on your shoes.
Who called it miscommunication
when it was a massacre.
I called it Thursday.

I made you feel.
You made it a crime scene.
Now every sentence tastes like sirens.
But sure—blame me
for the blood in your mouth
when you kissed me wrong.

So yeah—
maybe I do make things worse.
But worse is where the story gets good.
Where you start reading slower.
Where your hands start shaking.

It’s not that I ruin things.
I just ask questions
that don’t look good in daylight.

It’s not that I mean to wreck things.
I just don’t know how to leave a room
without checking every exit
twice.

And labeling each one ‘almost.’

You ever love someone
so hard you forget to be charming?
Me neither.

He thought he was the mystery.
I’m the red string
and the corkboard
and the girl in the basement
with the map of everything that never happened.

You didn’t fall for me.
You fell through me.
That’s not my fault.
It’s gravity.
Or girlhood.
Or God, laughing behind her hand.

Say it again. Slower. This time, with your hands in your pockets.

I left my phone in the fridge again.
Texted my dead friend by mistake.
The dream said turn left at the red door
but every door was mauve and melting.
I wore the wrong shoes
to the right breakdown.

God, I’m tired of being
the lesson in someone else’s flashback.
Of saying 'I’m fine'
like it’s a good thing.

Sometimes I bite a fingernail off
and flick it to the ground,
just to prove I was here,
just to pretend my DNA
is not a walking lie.

Sometimes I talk
to the dogs with TikTok accounts
like they’re holding something back.

Sometimes I rehearse my disappearances
in liminal spaces:
parking garages,
abandoned malls,
group chats I left on read.
Now I RSVP to nothing
and they still say
“you’ll be missed.”

I keep meaning to heal,
but the plot keeps thickening—
And my name—
God, my name—
it echoes like a spoiler
in a house that isn’t mine anymore.
A trivia fact
no one got right.

My memories keep getting
auto-corrected to get over it.
I don’t.
I alphabetize the wreckage.
I romanticize the ruin.
The rot is getting readable.

Anyway,
I’m late again.
Time got weird in the hallway.
I swear the mirror
was trying to warn me—
but I was too busy
checking if my under-eye bags
made me look exquisitely exhausted,
or just ordinary and old.

I wanted to scream  
but the hallway  
was practicing silence.  

I wanted to run,  
but the rug said stay  
and the mirror said  
be still  
and beautiful and
unavailable.

The mirror said:
this is what longing looks like
when it runs out of places to go.

So I stood there—
a half-wreck, half-reflection—
trying to decide
if disappearing quietly
still counts as survival.

Somewhere,
my phone is defrosting.
Somewhere,
the red door is waiting.

Somewhere,
my dead friend
is laughing
his ghost-laugh,
mouthing: same.

Mirroring yourself

without ego on others:


a soft reflection.

Oh, my days have gone back,
To the time I wore a sack.
Dusty, saggy—it was disgusting;
The threads holding it weren't so trusting.

The period long gone,
The chirpings I forgot—
All return, all anew,
Yet old, yet to be taught.

The sack still fits, though I've grown
In flesh and thought, yet not alone.
Its seams recall what I forget,
A stitched regret I haven’t met.

I tread the path I swore to shun,
A shadow walks where once I’d run.
It whispers truths I left behind—
Not cruel, just quietly unkind.

Do I resist? Or let it pass—
This mirror made of fractured glass?
For every step I try to flee,
The past keeps stitching into me.

Maybe you were never ready
to carry a weight that’s so heavy.
If you can’t set the course,
you’re going to need to follow.
You can bring water to a horse
but you can’t make it swallow.

You have to put your foot down
to ever take a step forward.
From the city back to town,
from space bound to homeward.

But she’s a Medusa with a mirror,
frozen inlove with her own reflection.
You scream your lungs out but even near her,
you’re always ignored;under detection.

Maybe you were never prepared
to share a burden that should never be shared.
It’s been a few years; it’s been some time
since you lodged your last complaint.
I’d like to believe you’re now doing fine,
and you’d like to believe you’re just a saint.

You have to put your foot down
to ever take a step forward.
Follow the air bubbles to not drown
don’t turn a drama into a horror.

But she’s a Medusa with a mirror,
frozen inlove with her own reflection.
If she can’t move will you still fear her,
and her manipulation and deflection?

I sometimes forget Medusa was victim to a curse,
and I never tried to make it better but I sure as hell made it worse.
Maybe Athena could’ve been more forgiving and kind,
she didn’t have to leave her living, or she could’ve made her blind.
She could’ve plugged her ears
so she wouldn’t have to hear the screams
of the men who holds fears
of a woman who dreams.
She could’ve ripped off her nose
or just taken her voice,
sometimes that the way it goes
you just don’t get a choice.

But she’s a Medusa with a mirror,
frozen inlove with her own reflection.
Even if she could scream no one would hear her,
and long ago got used to the rejection.

I look into the mirror,
a reflection without shine.
I look deeper, seeing my own reflection through my eyes.
But something is missing, something isn’t there.
I feel it, missing in my heart, in my mind.
But what is this yearning?
Can it be love? Or something else?
I’m afraid that no love I can have,
no words come from my mouth to express it.
Even if my soul punched my throat,
no word will come out to speak of it.