What You See

She moved the mirror without asking,

tilted it the way mirrors are meant to be,

and suddenly there I was,

caught in the glass, seen,

facing myself

in a way I'd worked to avoid,

in a way that made it clear

I'm never as hidden

as I need to be.

My eyes looked tired.

My mouth was doing something

I only do in the dark,

a small collapse I'd marked

as private,

as mine alone,

as something that only shows

when I'm unknown,

when the mirror's angled away,

when I think nobody's here to stay

and see what I look like

when I'm not looking back.

I tilted it away.

Turned it back toward the road,

back toward the blind spot,

back toward the way I'd been,

the way I could pretend

I didn't know what my face

looked like

when the guard was down.

But it's too late.

Now I know what I look like.

Now the mirror knows.

Now every reflection shows

what I've spent years

not seeing,

and I can feel it waiting

in every glass surface,

ready to prove

that I'm never quite as hidden

as I want to be.