Shards of The Looking Glass

featured in chapter in 'Now What'

Olive luniewski

I learned from the rain, and the wind that swept my hair over your eyes

And hid my flaws

A soft disguise

That mid- april day we learned to nibble glass

And walk on the tips of our toes.

We spoke the words we usually laid to rest

at the tips of our tongues.

And found its easier to speak

Without the metallic taste of your own blood

Spilled from biting your tongue

These 15 years.

What is glass,

But a shard used to deepen our wounds with?

or,

a green reflection buried by the tide

That you tucked in your pocket

And later placed on your windowsill

That summer day on the shore when you were 9.

When the nameless ocean was so vast

And all that mattered was the songs of seagulls

And the sand between your toes

The ones that hadn’t become so calloused yet

when all that mattered to you

soft skin

bitten nails

was wondering how you got here

And where is here?

And why you hear soft sobs pouring, deep, from your mothers lungs tonight

In a dark, strange house

Where she is the only truth you know.

Simplicity, only in retrospect.

Only because you have now experienced

the rising of enormous tears in your throat

No longer too big to fit your body

Now that the leap off the 6 foot ledge

Into forgiving waters

that you peered over when you were 10

Is no more daunting

Then the step down the stairs

As you carry You,

And your 15 years of booming silence

through the psyche ward walls

Relying only on the memory of fresh air

And warm embraces

Because no one here has eyes kind enough

To prove these realities to you

here.

a place so juxtaposed from reality

You may decide nothing ever was “real”

To begin with.

Turning to syllables and lines

With the moonlight flooding in through my bedroom window,

i catch my own twilight eyes in this vanity mirror,

And my skin glows yellow in the candle light as i begin my confession to you.

As i have become increasingly unwell, and increasingly visible in equal measure, I have been forced to the ledge, to confront my own sickness.

It is easier as a woman,

to compact your identity to a consumable package.

Red, hot, wax to seal it shut. To wear at the edges of your own pathology with the claws you sharpened for someone else.

Mania flaunts herself as feminine mystique. Until this becomes little more than smudged eyeliner and chipped nail polish. Wild joy rides, leaking with turmoil, absent of joy.

Maybe one day, you'll realize you were no more than an airless rosebud, plucked, placed in a jar. Told you look better that way. And while you're dried out, and wilted, you figure selling your pain is easier than living with it. But, no one is buying; you are running out of time.

So, maybe you’ll decide to let it go.

Its 7:35am

and im barely 16

Perhaps this confession is only fit

To be writ, then left unsent

Pressed inside an envelope

Shoved into a closet

But the moon is bright

And all i care to see is dim candlelight

and im barely 16.

So i begin to pack, and leave as i am

At my side,

A suitcase, suit to fit these 15 years

Carrying with me, the knowledge

To never step back.

Because what you are stepping into,

Is a floor

With a false bottom

Built by memories

Twisted by nostalgia.

And you will fall

With nothing to catch you, but the web of lies your emotions spun for you.

So be still

And step forward

Onto this solid earth that birthed you

And feel her warm kiss on your cheek when you return

home.

Now i live

Leaving dents in my wake

And a trail of footprints

Breadcrumbs i don't follow back

There is something divine about the nostalgic act of playing in the rain

Don't skip puddles

Water dries, evaporates

Falls again…

And it doesn't regret the rings it left on this treasured, pink ivory table

That was cut and carved for you to spill on

And sit with the boy you think you could love

Under the moon you know is there

But nevertheless, now hides from your view

atop this precious surface.

Even when your love may drip

And scorch a seething hole through this ivory table

That in 1,000 years

Is sure to be no more than dust in the lungs of your descendants.

Blown away by ancestral wind.

To be treasured is a blessing

everyone is bestowed

Wether by ones mother at your birth

Or a stranger, who didn't know

How much they’d treasure your presence

The morning they thought they'd never live to see

Because the night before was spent on floor

Searching for violent delights with violent ends

at the bottom of a bottle once full.

To ignore these gruesome truths

In a world filled only with them

Would be eating the glass

Swallowing the blood

And forever, never seeing the moon.

still im barely 16

And this confession may only be fit

To be writ, then left unsent

But the moon is bright

And all i care to see is bright candlelight

And these 15 years taught me enough to know,

no letter is left unsent

After its already hit the page.

Sitting on the edge of my bed

I drew a willow tree on a blank wall

And knew you were formed in her image,

Rooted

So the wind can merely shake you

You learned

On that mid april night

Amidst The cold, blundering envy of the rain

Just how stable you can be.

It was as clear as it had ever been

That you could sway to the symphony

Of nature in chaos

And you remembered

How to find the beauty in bushes overturned

with stones in your palms

And exposed roots spun round’ you

Whispering sweet sounds of safety.

There is no past, nor future

Besides the vision you have configured

Only nostalgia and dreams

And the poetry you strained

From the loss, and the pain, and desolation.

Because destruction is but another form of creation

And like a candle

You burn

Sometimes, at both ends

Only to melt,

solidify,

Morph into something new.

know,

Metamorphosis is your only constant

And that should be enough

That has to be enough

You must know, life, she refuses to pause for you

Only you can halt

Bend down to your knees

Ignore the stones in the skin beneath them

And tell the earth you're ready to follow her lead.

And you can learn,

to peer through the looking glass,

Its viridescent hue

Somehow, more vivid.

And see only truth staring back at you

Brown eyes gleam red; responding to the setting sun

Reflected in your eyes

Admire the glass

Without consuming it

Without it consuming you.