Step.
The first glint catches your breath -
a flicker of your face,
or someone else’s.
-
Turn.
Another angle,
jaw sharper,
eyes softer,
smile bleeding into a snarl.
-
Left.
Your hand brushes cold glass,
and a hundred fingers repeat,
splitting into ripples,
a shivering you, you, you.
-
Right.
A shadow darts,
yours -
but younger, crueler.
She whispers something,
her voice caught in the silence
of endless reflections.
-
Step.
Eyes flash in the corner.
Your lover’s?
Your child’s?
No, only yours -
but swollen with grief,
with rage,
that presses
too hard on your chest.
-
Turn.
The glass groans.
Another you falls
to her knees,
pressing her forehead
to the mirror
as the seams stretch,
and the walls buckle.
-
Run.
The mirrors leer,
their edges warping,
like predators circling prey,
like jaws snapping shut.
You catch a glimpse -
her eyes, your eyes,
your daughter’s eyes -
wide and wet with something unfair.
-
Stop.
Your breath fogs the surface.
A single pane stares back.
This time,
a single face.
Yours,
but older,
wiser,
refracted.
-
No way forward.
No way out.
The mirrors chime,
like crackling glass,
the sound folding in on you.
All of you.
-
Step.
-
About the Creator
Iris Obscura
I am many women. I am Iris.
Polite, sane, restrained? No. None of that.
Entropy at 3 am. Dead things stirring in your mind’s eye. Raking through your inner beauty to find something it hasn’t prettied up.
Maybe those.
Sometimes tender.
Read on.
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