Anxiety and Things that Shatter

Mirror

I spoke to a man in a mirror.
We had a conversation and he spoke politely.
We had the same eyes,
the same lips,
black skin,
both slim; everything;
He looked just like me.
But he wasn't me
and I wasn't him
So where do I begin?

He could speak to all the people which I couldn't,
He could say all the right words which I wouldn't.
He was everything I could never be,
He had everything I would want to see,
He could engage in conversations
with his friends, so free,
but he wasn't me...
And I wasn't him:
He was just a man in the mirror.

And so I spoke to this man in the mirror,
whom apparently we had the same figure.
He was just like me but less annoyed,
less afraid, less paranoid--
Less sad.
In the dark, he was a shinning star
whom anyone could see
even when they stood afar,
and his light reflected on the glass I looked upon,
and I wished I was the one.
I wished I was the one.

So I longed for this man in the mirror.
Practically, I longed for myself
'cause when I looked into those eyes,
I realized that that was me
and no one else.
Because an alter ego is still a version
of the original
That's why a man can be both
a loving husband and a criminal.
But it's still the same.
He was a version of me chained in a cage,
Surrounded by an aura of sadness and rage,
Unable to taste freedom like ink on a page--
and I'm unable to change.
Because for me to change I'd need to let the man in the mirror out.
But tell me, how?
It's not something I know anything about.
And so I doubt.

I doubt that I could ever find happiness.
Like the blind boy at church playing his purple clarinet.
So before the piano fades,
and while the music still plays,
tell the master that I'm afraid.
Tell him the skies are dark
and my wounds are about to taste the pouring rain,
tell him the pain and agony feels like a knife
twisting in my flesh and around my veins--
tell him.
Tell him despair crawls from the walls of my chest till it climbs up my head
and it pours down from my eyes as tears--
tell him.
'cause when I do, he doesn't hear--
Or maybe he does but he doesn't care
And that's why I fear,
and I doubt I could ever find happiness.

But then again I spoke to this man in the mirror,
and he told me;
he told to me to say goodbye to the old me,
he said look closely,
and then he showed me;
He said these chains are caused
by fear and by doubt
He said these chains are what you can do without
He said "why are you afraid?
Why do you fear that the sky
would rain down arrows
On your marrow and spine
And your blood would be spilled on the earth
like red Egyptian wine?"
He said, "You'll be fine."

And then he smiled.
A smile that could cut across universes
and across nations
A smile bigger than every hyperbole
and every exaggeration--
a smile of hope.
And then I felt the wind blow through the windows of my soul,
it felt like spirits partying in a rainy graveyard
covered with mud and coal,
it felt like the golden sunlight kissing the clouds,
with butterflies drenched in stardust fluttering around.
Then I saw the shattered chains crawling to put themselves back in the open;
But even the sands held in an hourglass
can't mold it back together when it's broken.
And from that day henceforth, I was free.
So if you see me talking to a man in the mirror,
know that I was talking to me.