The Tango of Broken Mirrors
A poem
A poem
Shards scatter across the floor,
reflections distorted, fragmented selves staring back.
In each jagged piece, I see a different me
fractured personas engaged in a macabre dance.
One shard holds the wide-eyed innocence of youth,
untainted by the world’s cruelties.
Another bears the weight of regret,
a heavy burden hunched over trembling shoulders.
A kaleidoscope of emotions swirls
within the prismatic shards, joy, sorrow, rage,
and everything in between,
tumbling together in a dizzying array.
I reach out, fingertips caressing the sharp edges,
heedless of the risk of cutting myself
on the truth laid bare.
Blood beads, a crimson exclamation point
punctuating the story of my existence.
The mirrors mock me,
daring me to piece together the disparate fragments
into some semblance of cohesion.
But how does one choreograph
a dance of such dissonant steps?
Perhaps the answer lies not in forcing harmony,
but in accepting the discordant rhythms,
the push and pull of opposing forces.
To tango with the broken mirrors
is to accept the multitudes within,
to let the light catch and refract
in infinite directions.
In this dance, I am both lead and follower,
guiding the shards
while allowing them to guide me.
We whirl in an endless cycle of self-discovery,
each step revealing another facet, another truth
to be acknowledged and integrated.
The music swells, a crescendo of shattered certainties,
and I surrender to the chaos,
letting the jagged edges slice away the facades
I’ve so carefully constructed.
With each cut, I bleed honesty,
each wound a reminder of the raw vulnerability
required to truly know myself.
And in the eye of this tempest
a strange peace emerges,
the acceptance that wholeness may forever elude me,
yet therein lies the beauty of the dance.
For it is in the constant flux,
the eternal tango with my fractured selves,
that I find the rhythm of my authentic being.
