Sunday, August 16, 2009

We Knew Each Other

Photo by Christopher Parsons

She seemed so familiar,
too familiar, too much like me.

But then something shattered,
either her or the mirror.

One can never tell
from so far behind,
or at all, really.

It began innocently.
A tiny fissure.
Barely noticeable.
Nothing a little foundation couldn't hide.

It grew slowly, at first.
An invisible hand dragging a pencil,
or a knife, across a page,
or a face.

A fault line,
the same one that I, and they,
were built upon.

We knew each other,
even those of us
whose eyes had never met.

Like them, I'd walk along the tightrope.

I'd pray for tension
and against the tremor and the crumble and the crack
that would split
it, or me,
wide open.

5 comments:

  1. beautiful blog. glad i stumbled upon it :)

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  2. that feels heavy, and i like it. i wish i could know more about this story.


    thanks for your comment on my lil blog, btw.

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  3. 40 came a few months ago, and for the last year and a half, every close glance at my face or my body shows me another change I'd rather not see. Learning to be comfortable in our skin takes practice every day, through every stage of life, doesn't it?

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    Replies
    1. Wow, Sheila. I just read this post again. Interesting. I can totally see how you'd see it relating to age, although my thoughts and inspiration were somewhere else when I wrote it.

      As far as practice goes, for me there are good days and bad, and this goes all the way back to my teen years. I think I feel I look my best when I have better more important things on my mind, so I work at practicing those things. Off I go!

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