Reflection of Choice

She walks into the dressing room with a smile upon her face,

A lacy black dress smooths over her shoulders and cups her breast,

She swirls as the bottom of the dress flutters against her ankles,

Her heart pounding knowing she’s blessed to be so dressed,

She glances at her reflection in the tall, slender mirror,

Shocked to see an old hag wearing a red puffy dress,

Grey hair in a shambles of unruly curls, confusion on her face,

Not gracefully pretty but haggardly adorned in rags and turpid stress.

**

A gentleman rushes towards his office, late meeting a client,

He ducks into the bathroom in an endeavour to pull himself together,

A splash of cold water graces the heat upon his face,

Hoping and praying it’ll perk him up as he’s a tad under the weather,

As he glances at his reflection, his mouth drops open in shock,

Perplexed at the man standing in front of him, dressed totally in leather,

What happened to his summer linen suit of style?

Now questioning his sanity, stretched to a tether.

**

A toddler dressed hilariously dances around her room,

Her mother chasing her, holding a skirt and top of matching pink,

The toddler giggles in glee, refusing to discard her crumbled jeans,

Delighted to be wearing a top smeared in food and drink,

As the little one catches her reflection in her bedroom mirror,

She delights in the glamorous sight of her dressed in silk and mink,

And continues to dance and prance out of her mother’s reach,

Misunderstanding her mother’s distress over what she could think.

**

Confusion reigned upon the world as weird scenarios continued abound,

As it was soon discovered that our mirrors set out to change their display,

Reality has been warped, our reflections misleading,

As we see future possibilities, if different choices held sway,

See the reflection, that’s just one possible outcome,

If you’d chosen a different action just yesterday,

Look again, for once more it has changed,

To an alternate solution, if you’d altered your choice in any way.

**

Each reflection different dependent on the decision you made,

Change your mind and the reflection will predict alternate reactions to see,

Tomorrow could be a kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities,

Just make a choice to set it free,

The mirror could be your best friend or your worst enemy,

In tune to your mind, your choices, your memory,

Will you dress in grace, in quirkiness or in contrast to the norm,

Or will you let the freedom of choice dictate just who you’re going to be?

This poem was written in response to a prompt from Lodestar Gazette Medium Publication). The prompt I chose to run with is as follows :

Mirrors stopped reflecting reality; instead, they show what could have been if different choices were made.

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Originally published on Medium