An erratic, muddled manikin arises. Unwillingly after being ripped from fantasies of sleep encased in endless possibilities, he rises. A sickly man he seems, from years of perception on my part, as he stumbles to the mirror that seems to reflect the only slice of him that shall ere be noticed by kin and friends alike. Who is the masked man in reflection? This mind which bears no recollection of the years of change and pithy degradation of the shape and form and fitness too.
A body only, can I be? My thoughts more random than they seem? Who knows what lies around the endless bend of scientific theories. But this man, although at times I seem to understand his ploys, the rest he is a stranger. Stranger than the wildest of sorts, the homeless, racists, and the like. But how could I be in cohorts with this stranger who takes to lodging in my skin? I have no solid answer, only weak and simple claims of truth I think I once began to know.
Yet again I rise, every day. This "I" more hollow than the trees that run along the bay with rotten roots and stems. From far away it seems so grand and closer still it seems to climb the sky, but only when you look inside you'll see the truth of insect blights. A wee, maimed child that I am, the only truth I can expend. It's rather sorry my mind had sought to grow so tall in other's minuscule perceptions when a wretched troll runs levers, pulleys in this shell of flesh and bone.
A ha! But could there be the faintest hope that bodies will be full and grow as flowers in the softest spring? The one called Cody contests there is, but if thy soul cannot I ne'er could hold against thy lack of faith. This hope found me, and not I it, so pray I will it visits next the one to which I speak. As door to door I see it go, gifting randomly a hope which warms the hollow bones in homes it meets.
This "I", whatever that it means, it cannot build solely on thee. But efforts tried in Cody's name will ruin him, and wrinkle face. So look, you, to another playwright, the mirror cannot satisfy; that man one day will disappear and die. Then what? With what are humans left? An empty jar that shatters on the ground.
Written by C.
