Welcome to the house of mirrors
We are now inside of the night
Where moonflowers grow to bulbs,
And I reflect selves as smiles.
We affect the balcony
Hours of talk but nothing to say
Silvered walls widen into the sky
And I
Circle dreams on my palm as
Heart line, fate line, fault line
Who does he want me to be?
Foxtrot conversations, I don’t worry
Watch the slow slow quick quick – he leads.
With these hyperreal
balloons for eyes I
Show don’t tell,
Sink into tropes of sociality,
Let the tonal sepias speak for me.
Manic pixel dream girl I play
Empath today, tomorrow a cynic
Stashing spare selves
In every chamber of these
Tilted frames;
Know your angles,
Hold still till it sells –
But I was designed for hyperopia
He comes close and the image flickers
Forehead dampens, pores appear stop
Remember the rules
Welcome to the house of mirrors
Pick windows over doors,
Arrange your organs quaint
Shred your ego into imagery
Spinning dizzy on the photo reel
Deep breath – no one is one
Scrape your throats on the scripts
And again deep breath and then again
These lungs are punctured airbags
Flashing lights and a seizure of attack
I am
Featherweight at the fall of a whisper
Straddling the spare selves at once:
A heaving mudslide stuck in myself
A mirage with ten heads
The horror house shatters
Glass falls like electric rain
Shards prick my balloon eyes
And I –
Deep breath
Peel
The Battery
Off my body
Wash the shock
Out from my lips
Spark out. Come clean
I draw the curtains till it is always dusk
And I am all that is coming home
Sweeping bits of mirror away,
The dreamgirls strip,
Switch it all off,
And leave.
I leave.
Sanjana Sheth is a contributing writer at ALMA MAGAZINE.
