MIRROR

I spoke to a man in a mirror
We had a conversation and he spoke politely
We had the same eyes, the same lips, black skin, both slim; everything;
He looked just like me.
.
But he wasn't me
And I wasn't him
So where do I begin?
.
He could speak to all the people which I couldn't,
He could say all the right words which I wouldn't.
.
He was everything I could never be,
He had everything I would want to see,
He could even walk around his friends so free
But he wasn't me...
And I wasn't him:
He was just a man in the mirror.
.
.
And so I spoke to this man in the mirror
Whom apparently we had the same figure
He was just like me but less annoyed,
Less afraid, less paranoid
Less depressed.
.
In the dark he was a shinning star
Whom anyone could see even when they stood afar
And his light reflected on the glass I looked upon
And I wished I was the one..
I wished I was the one.
.
.
So I longed for this man in the mirror
Practically, I longed for myself
'Cause when I looked into those eyes
I realized that was me and no one else
.
Because an alter ego is still a version of the original
That's why a man can be both a loving husband and a criminal
But it's still the same.
.
He was a version of me chained in a cage
Surrounded by an aura of depression and rage
Unable to taste freedom like ink on a page
And I'm unable to change.
.
Because for me to change I'd need to let the man in the mirror out
But tell me, how? It's not something I know anything about
And so I doubt.
.
I doubt that I could ever find happiness
Like the blind boy at church playing his purple clarinet.
.
So before the piano fades
And while the music still plays
Tell the master I'm afraid.
.
Tell him the skies are dark and my wounds are about to taste the pouring rain
Tell him the pain and agony feels like a knife twisting in my flesh and around my veins
Tell him...
Tell him despair crawls from the walls of my chest till it climbs up my head and it pours down from my eyes as tears: tell him...
.
'Cause when I do he doesn't hear
Or maybe he does but he doesn't care
And that's why I fear
And I doubt I could ever find happiness.
.
.
But then again I spoke to this man in the mirror
And he told me
He told to me to say goodbye to the old me
He said look closely
And then he showed me
.
He said "why are you afraid?"
He said these chains are caused by fear and by doubt
He said these chains are what you can do without
He said "why are you afraid?
.
Why do you fear that the sky would rain down arrows
On your marrow and spine
And your blood would be spilled on the earth like red Egyptian wine?"
He said "you'll be fine."
.
And then he smiled.
A smile that could cut across universes and across nations
A smile bigger than every hyperbole and every exaggeration
A smile of hope.
.
And then I felt the wind blow through the windows of my soul
It felt like spirits partying in a rainy graveyard covered with mud and coal
It felt like the golden sunlight kissing the clouds, with butterflies drenched in stardust fluttering around.
.
.
Then I saw the shattered chains crawling to put themselves back in the open.
.
But even the sands held in an hourglass can't mould it back together when it's broken.
.
And from that day henceforth, I was free.
.
So if you see me talking to a man in the mirror
.
Know that I was talking to me.

©Samuel Jr. 

(Samuel Adeyemi)