when at first the eye is caught,
i am perfect.
not yet tainted with the hate of society, i am what i look;
pure, humble, unmarked by the tangled, complex web of
humanity.
everyone i meet, everyone i know, everyone i’ve seen,
those who came before;
to them i am blind, and i don’t need any of it.
i am whole, and i am
beautiful.

toss a stone, and watch the ripples change shape.
disrupt the illusion.
transformation.

glancing back, i am
fragmented;
hundreds of pieces upon pieces upon pieces,
all mismatched and scattered,
bruised by the notion that any of it mattered,
if you could see beyond the reflection, through this face once mistaken for
perfection,
into the contours of my mind, you would no longer have
any reason to admire.

but you can’t.
for this is merely an image;
hollow and empty;
but nonetheless we still
watch.
we still worship,
still stare until our eyes forget to look elsewhere.

we will not drown in our self-love;
and we will fail to take notice
until we waste away and there is not even a
shadow left to look
back at.