Your reflection taunts you
In shades of green and black.
Your thoughts and actions
From you and right back.
Your reflection taunts you
In shades of green and black.
Your thoughts and actions
From you and right back.
THE DARKNESS INSIDE
Teeth glisten in the dark as I walk through the park. I stop in my tracks in fear, not knowing what can be near.
I stand quietly and listen, but I only see the glisten. Soft footsteps ring out behind me. I’m not waiting around to see.
Then I happen to glance down, and my face droops in a frown. The fanged smile floats on the lily pond. Of my reflection, I’m not so fond.
It reveals the darkness inside that I’ve always failed to hide. |
THE VELVET ROOM
I enter the room of blood-red walls.
I pass the velvet furniture
and step in front of the mirror.
The lamps on either side flicker.
The glass turns foggy
until I can’t see my face.
Mist swirls around my features
like snakes roaming a corpse.
The fireplace at my feet sparks.
Heat suffuses my body,
beginning at my feet.
The fog clears in the mirror.
The face doesn’t belong to me.
An old woman’s face.
She has my features and eyes,
but she’s wrinkled and bony.
A smile lifts the corners of her mouth.
I touch my mouth.
I’m not smiling.
An arm in the mirror
wraps around her scrawny neck.
A snap.
Her head tilts at a strange angle.
Lifeless stare past me.
A hand touches my shoulder.
I scream and run from the room.
Laughter follows me from the house.
I will never return.
by Susanne Leist
THE CRIMSON REFLECTION
The sky’s crimson reflection
mars the ocean’s blue surface.
As the sun sets for the night,
it hides behind the darkening clouds.
The sky dips into its bag of tricks
to bring forth a yellowed moon.
As the sky becomes inky black,
the water flows blood red.
From the murky depths,
dark creatures rise this night.
Onto our crisp white shores, they walk,
leaving bloody footprints in the sand.
THE DEAD GAME by Susanne Leist
BLUE
It calls for me tonight.
I will close my eyes tight.
I still can see the blue.
It lights up me and you.
I open my eyes and see
what I don’t believe can be.
Mountains and water so blue,
that your face reflects it too.
I’m lost at a carnival,
A carnival of nightmares.
A clown leers at me.
The knife-thrower aims
But misses.
I run into a tent.
Mirrors surround me,
Distorting my reflection.
I flee into the darkness,
Crashing through a mirror.
Glass rains on me.
I’m in a dark room.
The floor spins.
I grab for the walls.
They are wet and shiny.
There’s no way out.
The floor bottoms out,
And I’m falling.
THE DEAD GAME by Susanne Leist
Are we ever alone?
Do we carry with us
the spirits of the past;
the loved ones who
have passed?
I can feel them
and sometimes see them.
Can you?
Split Rock Magic by RJIPhotography on Flickr.
Red glows the sky.
I can see it
from way up high.
The water below
like a mirror I
can say hello.
The wind comes in.
I am chilled from
windows too thin.
This is still my place,
I wouldn’t trade it
for any other place.
Anguish is my sole friend.
Tentacles wrap me close
with its wiry arms of despair.
The day holds no easement for my pain.
The sun shines too bright from its tall pedestal.
The night brings forth the proud moon
that rides the sky with its chariot of horses.
Its glow lights the hearts of the forgotten.
Its reflection soothes the troubled soul.
One more minute before I join the others.
The ones who search for the white reflection
in the cold depths below.