Maybe I’ll start looking in the mirror with the lights on

maybe i’ll start looking in the mirror with the lights on, then by doing so i can stop relying on eyes outside of my own to dictate the delicate boundaries of flesh that i inhabit and tread so lightly within & maybe in this new approach i’ll see a body, at first glance strong and firm in its positioning, but give it a second look and notice the stock-still and terrified quivers when the wind wraps its self around its limbs, crawls its way to its ear and whispers, “move” & maybe i’ll notice its weight barring legs that i can only assume has carried that which was needed to combat all things taken away and have found protection in their concreteness & maybe i am forced to think about my own legs and how perhaps the weight they carry goes by different names but i know that when i see those legs before me, my knees tremble in recognition & maybe as i compare our canvases our eyes meet each other and the once seemingly innocent meeting shifts into a kind of reckoning — a coming to terms & maybe when our pupils adjust to the light and our inhaling and exhaling finds synchronicity, warm salty water rises to the surface and we become enveloped in a rage only found within proximity & maybe i will absorb the shock to muster the courage to start speaking and introduce myself to this new being & maybe my typical mild tempered and well calculated words begrudgingly float out of my throat will have no time to filter themselves and before i know it forbidden words are spewing past my lips & maybe ill find myself out of breath, exhausted, and stewed in hatred only to realize this reflection has not flinched & maybe it begins to speak & maybe ill be enchanted by its voice, a voice filled with wisdom, storytelling, and a laugh that consumes its whole body and the others around it & maybe ill keep it at arms length for fear of what it will say or how my legs or my chest or my arms or my gut will have no choice but to reconcile with the fact that we are too similar & maybe we find each other within a shared birthright, passed on by those who have shared our flesh and have never had the relief of a relaxed shoulder or felt the release of an un-clinched jaw so now we are left with decisions unlike the ones of our day-to-day & maybe this body in the mirror has been waiting for me & maybe i for it & maybe in our meeting it is within both our understandings that this space between us is a space for unabashed and barefaced intimacy, to see each other so as to see each other & maybe ill be moved to accept this figure in front of me, to join it hand-in-hand and realize that the things we encapsulate are larger than what our flesh knows & maybe by doing so the ashes of past weights are sacrificed upon the alter of what is new & maybe we will then be able to float between the multiplicities that those before dreamed & maybe when we take our first breath in our new world, their last sigh may be uttered.

written by : safara louise