The Monsters I Keep in My Mirror

Index:
1. What is a mirror but glass so easily broken
2. Time slipping ever by
3. How deep these waters
4. Butterflies Metamorphosis
5. Hatreds warm embrace
6. All the faces I keep on my trophy shelf
7. Changing always, never changing
8. Envy is my lover
9blood red apple, a fools temptation
10. Life passed me by like a sports car on the highway
11. The essence of who she is
12. all these things born anew
13. painted signs and words unspoken
14. until I feel nothing
15. growing pains
16.Bird song and tears
17.Sorrow that will not be erased
18. This lonely road
19. what light shines invisibly
20. the beauty of the Lilly
21.the layers of my heart
22. The waters edge
23. my heart has sunk a million times
24. Life on the key ring
25. I confine myself with nonexisten chains
26.ode to the ceiling fan
27. withered and dead
28.The fates watch me
29. Questions
30.The Monsters I Keep in My Mirror

1.
What is a mirror but glass so easily broken

This mirror here broken to pieces
Still tells the only truth to be told
Tells a story of who I've been
shows the world if only for a moment, my ugly parts
The parts I hide with ashes and bones and pretty smiles
This broken mirror shows me in sharp relief the things I wish to leave behind
The time I let tick by
People I let die
Words I never had the courage to say
Tears I couldn't hold back
Lies I told to save my face
These things swirl together to make an image of me
Then shatter apart into the pieces I can sweep under my beside table
I glue together the parts of me I can face
And wear them like a masquerade mask
We dance here now, smiles showing, twirling in an never-ending cycle
Music swells and we cannot hear the words being said
so we examine ourselves in the chandeliers reflection
And we fall to the ground like stars
Shattered like my mirror
like me

2.
Time slipping ever by

tick tock
The clock strikes one
I am walking towards the light
tick tock
The clock strikes two
A butterfly flies by distracting my flight
tick tock
the clock strikes three
Heavy chains shackle me
tick tock
the clock strikes four
I must work to break free
tick tock
the clock strikes five
I am distracted by my aching thirst
tick tock
the clock strikes six
I must fill your cup first
tick tock
the clock strikes seven
I stare into nothingness
tick tock
the clock strikes eight
I feel the ache of your love so heartless
tick tock
the clock strikes
I walk forward once more
tick tock
the clock strikes ten
I miss a step falling to the floor
tick tock
the clock strikes eleven
I am crawling desperate for the light, something now to end this plight. The endless drippings of the sand, the endless moments I have lost, oh the ticking of the clock
tick tock
the clock strikes twelve
a door closes, the lights no more
I am stuck here forever
tick tock
the clock strikes one

3.
How deep these waters

Words drip like blood from the corners of your mouth
Lies that tarnish your lips with black venom
I think it must make you beautiful because they all smile and believe
But to me all I see is an ugly mask
I cannot see what hides behind it, like a scared child
Be it a broken soul that never had the love to heal it - or never let that love in
Or does it hide a blackened heart that poisoned itself with it's self love
Oh how attractive that reflection, How deep those waters
Either way that mask is the face I grew up seeing in every dream
It obscured the moonlight on my darkest night
It held no warmth, blood drained empty emotionless mask
I guess I am just like you, I wear one too
I forged it out of mud in the backyard that spring
Molded by a childs hand there are many cracks
It doesn't seem to attract the adoration yours always does
I wish I was more like you
I am glad we're so different
Maybe we're just the same
Have we broken in exactly the same way?

4.
Butterflies metamorphosis


Sometimes I wonder if my childhood cries for me
Does she paint sidewalk chalk on the pavement in the hot sun
and wonder where she will be when she grows up
does she play in the rain and let tears roll down her face
scared to face the years to come
Is she so blissfully unaware of the time ticking by stealing her joy and replacing it with the crushing weight of expectations.
and if she came up to me on the street one day, chocolate dripping down the face she hasn't yet learned to hate
and she asked me where we are now
Do i tell her the truth, do I teach her to hate now before she has time to be destroyed by love
Or do I lie and let her live out the pain, but learn and become someone new

Sometimes I wonder if childhood laughs for me
Would she be a little bit proud
Proud of the places I've been, the battles I've fought
Maybe even a little proud of the tears I've cried

I think if i saw her, I wouldn't tell her anything
I would lie in a field with her and we would catch butterflies
and look for shapes in the clouds
And I would look into her eyes that could never comprehend the world
And I would be glad, so glad, because we've grown up
and I would be sad because it was a long winding path to get here
I fell down and scraped my knees on the pavement no longer decorated with chalk
But I've made it
I've grown up

Oh! very nice imagery and messages in your poems already Quill; very strong start to NaPo! - My particular favorite is #4 right now I think, the metaphor of a butterfly metamorphesis and how you used it was thoughtful and creative and ah a lot of heartbreaking lines in that one too. Looking forward to continuing to read along all month! Keep writing!

5.
hatreds warm embrace
Do I hold my hatred like a thorn pierced into my palm
Or like a flower tucked behind my ear
Is she the voice that whispers in the hardest times
Is she the puppeteer for this marionette
Does she seep into every smile twisting it
Was she born rooted deep in my heart
Did I let her in with all my pain
Or did you teach me how to make friends with her
Did I meet her first when you told me I couldn’t play with my toys any longer
Or did she find me crying at the sound of your shouts and wrapping her arms around me
Does she reside in the iris of my eye, darkening my vision
I embrace her in the cold dark nights
I look for her when I am broken
I call her name when my ears drip blood from your pricing shouts
I saw her in your eyes when you left me dying on the pavement
Now I cannot separate hate from my very being
We two so intertwined
Hate was the only friend who never left me
Hatred holds a special place for me,
After all I hate you
But I hate myself the most

"hate was the only friend that never left me" a very inspiring line and extremely deep i love your poems quilly im so excited to see more of them omg

6.

All the faces I keep on my trophy shelf

I am the clay on the potters wheel
Changing myself to the requests of those looking down on me
Moulding myself based upon your wayward glances
When you smile I carve my lips to become like yours
I cut away skin and bone to fit into your boxes
The words you say bounce of my skin and leave deep impressions
When you laugh I tear out my vocal cords until I sound like you
I change myself to become like the person you needed most
I am the clay upon the potters wheel
But who is the potter?

7.
changing always, never changing

will I look back at my footprints in the sand
regret the places I’ve been
hate the feet that made them
wish I had taken a different path
will I wish I could retrace them
relive them over and over
I have walked a lonely road
or maybe I just couldn’t see the other footprints
blown away in the summer wind
I have looked upon a blackened ocean
Pondered my reflection in it’s depths
washed away my sorrows in it’s gently lapping waves
I’ve laughed with friends in the setting sun
I have forgotten them lying in the dark light of the moon
I have yearned for a new life
wished for the tide to change this desolate land
I’ve told myself that I have been moving forward
but I wonder if I have been tethered to the same weathered post
all this time, year after year
I told myself I would heal but I walk barefoot over the sharp stones
do I take all this in, the good the bad
and to I look at it all happening behind me
and wish I could go back
or just keep looking forward
trying to forget
my footprints in the sand