This poem only available on Stories Space. If you are reading it elsewhere, it has been stolen.

The pre-dawn light is green-grey and dull,
The air slumbers,
Thick and heavy.
Dampness and mulch
Layer the heart of the earth's foundations.

In the mirror she sees
Herself.
Darkness with a sickly tinge;
"Better be hid in the shadows, dear,"
Her heart tells her in anguish.

The sun is coming,
And what shall she see?
The years of torment,
Punishment for living,
Bitterness for existence,
Hatred for being,
Sorrow for life,
Shame for possession of such a gift
Abused and unwanted.

The sun is coming.

She takes the darkened mirror from the wall.
She cannot bear to look,
The accusing eyes of the fragmented soul,
The mournful self-pity of the weak,
The hopelessness of the apathetic,
The exhaustion of worn-out striving
To
Be
Something
She
Is
Not.

Old worn velvet,
The shiny surface of the mirror.
Once there was rich texture,
Now remains chintzy, threadbare layers of fustiness
And decay.

She holds the mirror in her hands
At the moment before the sun kisses the skyline
And lays the world bare in scorching, fulsome
Day.

She looks into the smoke
One last time.

"I hate you," she says.

She raises the mirror above her head,
And in defiance of the rising furnace,
She uses the final vestiges of pain
To hurl the foul mirror to the floor.

Deadly shards of black ice
Fly upwards from the core of the waking earth,
Razor clouds of burning arrows
Scream upwards,
Burying themselves into her face
And hands
And heart.
They scatter in droves of knives
Across her bare feet,
Slashing flesh
And marking their territory.
Where once she saw herself,
Now others can see her too.

And the sun,
That terrible judge of aching power,
That oven of burning justice
Pours itself molten over the horizon
And burns the darkness away
In a rolling sizzle of liquid fire.

She hides her face in the whirlwind of grey shards,
Her soul and her body cut to ribbons by
Condemnation
And ugliness.

She lies on the ground,
Painful, broken heart-wrenching sobs
Causing her form
To heave under the scrutiny of
Creation's burning eye.

She is spotlighted in fire,
Blazing light pouring from her in waterfalls,
And she fears to lift her face
And open her eyes
And raise her hands for comfort.

For the shards of her life are laid bare
For all to see.
Bad enough her own judgement,
No more can she bear it from others.

And the sun beats down upon her,
Casting firefalls around her form.

She cannot see the rainbow fire
The shards of her mirror
Send up in answer to the light.
She cannot see the dancing shimmers
Her heaving form throws in
Circles of beauty
Around herself.

She cannot see that the
Sun has made her glorious
As her pain and
Darkened soul
Can recognise and
Bounce the stars around.

She cannot see
That her pain has made her
A
Jewel
Of
Beauty.

She is covered in shards of a broken soul,
And she gleams
In glorious garments
When
Creation turns its face towards her.

This poem only available on Stories Space. If you are reading it elsewhere, it has been stolen.