The Girl In the Mirror

Poor choices ride piggy back on lies, holding my trembling frame against shame flaming walls . . . A million smiles may paint the day, but deep canyon nights hold no disguise; a yellow smiley face veneer defies a taunting chorus of demon jeers. Looking eye to eye in the mirror, my conscience dares not lie; see her there, that girl, the first she selfishly betrayed? The demons on the doorstep, uninvited, move inside and enact a day of dreadful reckoning. I should have known you did not, could not love me, so explosively you hated everything you are. Such a foolish little girl to think I had the skill to deliver your demented psyche; feverish digging with a dinner fork will not alter a mighty river's flow. A warranty deed of failure accompanied our vows; the home above the sinkhole slipped, swallowed by hollow abyss. Truth turned and slapped me sharply in the face; the nights of dread, a love stone dead loomed, defiant shadows, around my bed carousing. Decades passed, time looks back with penetrating honesty from eyes of children grown; painfully beautiful, their crippled spirits limp in careful dance, dragging the dead lead weight of all my sin. Oh, God! If I could dry the unshed sorrow, eye glistening, of these others, dearest ever, my selfishness betrayed. Copyright, August 31, 2014 Faye Lanham Gibson