It’s fascinating
to watch someone lie to themselves
and, by extension, to you.
You want to be mad
To shake them, to wake them
To hold a mirror and say
“See. Here.”
But Alice is not an English teacher
or a psychologist.
To her, her dreams are just dreams.
So even if she does climb through the looking glass,
there’s no telling what she’ll take from the encounter
and bring to the waking
But I’ll tell you one thing:
It’s unlikely to be the truth you were hoping for.
Our brains work so hard
to protect us from our own reflection
But eventually we’ll catch an honest glimpse,
in a storefront window or a glassy puddle
or the eye of someone we love
And we’ll realize, with a jolt,
all the truths we’ve been running from.
And we’ll start to wonder who else knew
but was gracious enough to let us see it for ourselves
And we’ll start to wonder who else knew not
and was as gullible as I.
(08.24.22)
abstract relations vi 