“…I step forward and grab the edges of the sink. I open my eyes and look up into the mirror and for the first time in five days I see my own face. My lips are cut and cracked and they are swollen to three times their normal size. On the left side of my cheek a row of crusted scabbed stitches hold a deep, inch-long gash together. My nose is bent and swollen beneath its bandage and red lines stream from my nostrils. There are black and yellow bruises beneath both of my eyes. There is blood, both wet and dry, everywhere.”

[He writes about cleaning up his face and then:]

“…I turn off the water and I run my hands through my hair and they’re warm and they feel good and I try to look at myself again. I wan to see my eyes. I want to look beneath the surface of the pale green and see what’s inside of me, what’s within me, what I’m hiding. I start to look up but I turn away. I try to force myself but I can’t.”

At first I noticed weight on my cheeks and neck, felt negative, considered how I’d been eating wrong. Blah blah bleah. My cheeks and chin are so smooth. I was disappointed in looking ordinary, seeing so little character. My forehead keeps some wrinkles, I find that more interesting, maybe proof of a journey, and I still don’t know when that happened.

I looked. There are so many colours on my skin. Orange, yellow, pink, beige, tan, willow brown spots, dark brown spots, brown which is dark hairs over beige skin and me needing new glasses.

It’s hard to look at my whole face at once. I wonder how I look at anyone’s face. My pupils are big, my eyes are so dark. I keep getting caught up in detail. Distracted, I remember happenings today, and my face changes so much with humour. Or as the humour fades to neutral. As I look longer, I’m surprised at the restfulness I feel, and that I’m not bored. Maybe this builds a feeling that I look ok, or that I know myself.

At one point I feel impermanence, anxiety, grasping, an emotional contrast to loneliness. Which is strange, because I am the person who will never leave me.

It’s strange, because last year I drew a lot of crayon self portraits. Strange, because I have an inner sense of meeting my own eyes often. But looking is different, almost not me. I was once standing in a line and I looked over and saw someone. I thought “Who is that friend, how interesting, where do I know her from, how can I know her so well, how can I feel so good about her?” But I was looking at myself reflected in the glass of a window.

cruelly crammed into too-tight jeans
bulge and spill into muffin-tops

but moments like this
free of encumbrances
soft and round
the curve of my belly
is a sight to behold

***
(very strange to write a love poem to what you want to hide)

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest of all
Who is the sad old lady
Who is constently staring at me
And why so gray is her hair
And why’d did she invade such a private space
Doesn’t she know it’s impolite to stare
And why does she look like a basket case
I don’t recall inviting her in
But she’s always there
She shows up on gray and moody days
Wearing the same clothes as me nontheless
When I ask her who she might be
the only thing she does is mimic me
I believe her name should be Tess
I wish she would go away
And let the real me finally shine in……..