You look in the mirror at yourself
the girl with a lopsided face
and an uneven smile
and crooked teeth
and brown eyes
that read the word
tree on her shirt
   as eert in the glass

your steel sharp eyes
cut this mirror into the back of your head
and you see it everywhere

in every thought
in every word
in every number

and when you spill yourself in any form onto a page
your letters form a code
that is invisible to any mind

but yours

and you are only understood
when your write a
palindrome
which isn’t rearranged
by the mirror in your head.

but the chance that you’ll find one such
palindrome in your writings
is slimmer than the tip of your teacher’s red pen
and even slimmer than
the lines in your teacher’s red x

and the few times your letters and words are finally not
written backwards
your teacher comments
this is amazing
but you read ‘this’ backwards
and you crumple your paper
and hope that next time
you’ll practice things the right way

but unfortunately for you
practice time is over
and the veins in your hand ice over
as your teacher hands out the final essay exam
along with the final instructions

write about who you are 

your teeth clench
your brows
furrow
your head
throbs
and your eyes wilt
at the crumpled paper

because you live in
a world of
reflections

and you don’t know that
this mirror isn’t who you are
because it is all you have ever seen