“I’ll be your mirror”

–Lou Reed

I try to write as I am. Of course,

I could be lying—but that’s the trick,

Isn’t it? To write through the skin

until the pen’s nib scratches dry bone,

until the face I present implodes

into the silence from which it rose.

Even when lies are unintended,

one only knows what one only knows:

the mirror lies as often as not.

(July 27, 2018)