You Are
Who are you, beyond yourself?
When your thoughts and feelings become
strange, unwelcomed intruders,
abusing you day and night.
Do you envy the freedom of
ashes whipped by the wind?
When the rhythms of life--
sleep, breath, and stride--
jerk and lurch off-charted,
and your hair leaves in clumps
upon your trembling brush,
do You leave too?
After the mirrors have betrayed you,
and colluded with the meds,
to ravage your face and shape,
will you hang those labels
one by one around your neck
and stand rejected in a stall?
Open the envelope to your invitation.
and read between its lines.
Let us play the game of hide and seek,
or polish the silver,
until you reveal the real You,
beneath life's shifting disguises.
You are the hider and the seeker,
the remover of tarnish,
and the challenge of Love,
to be found in any mirror--
the Infinite One creating,
with the light and the night.
Alice W. Lee