sleight of hand

You are a stranger with my thoughts

An alien, an imposter

I look into my fun house mirror and there you are

Staring at me with twisted lips and damaged skin

I don’t know if that’s my face 

Or my arms

Or my legs

But we have the same colored eyes

And that’s my hair on your head

So who does that make me?

I’ve heard the descriptions 

There is an image in my mind

But when I see the photos, where am I?

Either everyone is wrong or a liar

Or I am blind and truthful

You are someone on the other end of a call

Distant, disconnected, untouchable

For your next trick

You will drive me mad.

It took delirium and illness

To see through your big top tricks

But soon your magic set back in

And I believe you all over again.

This imaginary friend

Someone that sounds too good to be true 

With her frame and her adjectives

Is she a hallucination?

At night, with only the stars for wandering eyes

I know she isn’t real, yet somehow

I must know her

Better than everyone else, better than anyone else

Right?

You have my name, you have my voice, but you aren’t there 

In your place is someone new

And I hate her

With every piece of me

That is still mine.

There is a gray cloud

There is a void

There is a haze

And I am on the floor

A stranger’s fingers wipe my tears

Quiet me and call me crazy

Because no one sees what I see.

The crowd is gone

The fireworks have all blown away

In a darkened room

The spotlight shines down on the two-sided coin, the double-edged sword.

People say there is a pretty, healthy girl 

But when I look into the mirror

My twisted, warped mirror

I can’t believe she ever existed at all.