"The Looking Glass"

"The Looking Glass"

Never considered the time
I've spent standing by this window.
Thought back to when I wrote pieces...
contingent upon which way the wind blows.
I was in need of direction.
Perfection my muse and torture.
Forfeiture my greatest fear.
Ink bled through the tears
on pages I've tossed away.
I found so much more
the day I lost my way.

Maybe that's why I'm still near this window.

Uncertainty the purest drive.
It is honest and pure.
Nothing akin to demure.
When the mind is unsure,
the heart takes center stage.
Love a lonesome discovery
when we taylor it for recovery.
We are taught to mend the patches
but how does one break the latches
that no witness saw secured?

Why so long just standing here, though?

This window.

Where everything within
already knows where to begin.
Friends viewed as contemporaries
far too involved to be contrary
when it comes to life.
Strife the shortest thought derived
when striving to serve outside themselves
to anyone willing to look in.

This window.

Where through a crack in the blinds,
I find one among them
that is not as brisk.
Does he fear the risk
or recognize futility?
Is he exerting his humility?
Nothing demonstrative before him.
He appears sort of postmortem.
Lifeless soul void of deliberation.
Coy in his search for liberation.
Drawn into some stubborn fixation
that keeps him facing where no one treads.

Threads unravel from these worn curtains
adorned in purpose for the self-scorned
so urgently still self drawn
to the window because I'm too nervous
to use the front door that never locks.
With each fiber that rips
I grip tighter to the truth.
Fruit of my fearsome labor.
Favors offered by many.
Helping hands aplenty
but no confidence in self.
The top shelf is no place for me.
Where the complacency
makes latency an end
that requires no justifiable means.
Afraid of not remaining clean.
Scared to lose that gleam
that was imparted when intrigue
endeared me to something as profound
as the sound of power etched in lines.

Through this window I have found me.
This view defines me.
I am sitting there:
afraid to care enough to go
because someone out there may show
me that I'm not good enough.
The rougher pills I'm scared to swallow.
So content with being hollow
that even my contempt can't nourish me.
Furnished well within my doubt,
I see me there but won't dare shout.

I might scare myself away from the window.

So we stay here
in our stalemate.
In my wonder
and my frail state.
We just sulk into regression
as all progression is stalled.
It honestly begs the question:

Was this a window at all?

Written By: Devin Joseph Metz