funhouse mirrors

ain't it a damn shame
the way that form distorts itself before your very eyes
twisting before you in the glass with a sinister pirouette
lying through gritted teeth as it spits abuse all over your naked flesh
and leaving cuts beneath it
invisible to the naked eye

as that simple curvature
to the world, as inviting as a green sunlit hillock
upon which any creature would gladly bask
becomes a grotesque mass to be eliminated
drained and burned
altered and primped and prepared for
competitive display

ain't it a disappointment
when those sleek branches that extend from your trunk
full of a sapling's youthful vigor
bounce off the surface and deliver bile-stained disgust through the hole in your iris
and all you see is a stunted leper
already skeletal and
no more deserving of love than a corpse

images that would leave the right lungs breathless as socrates on hemlock
do little more than churn your insides
feeding the parasite inside you
the worm that tells you it really is
'nt anything
special
to be alive

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/8bp4gh/comment/dxaej2c

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