Narcissus

Had a dream of passing through the mirror

Hope is the ventricle where

I store extra copies of my name,

each syllable a golden sound note.

I inhale the ghost of my last

unread message to myself,

let it settle in my lungs as I hold it in.

Every breath is a renewal clause

I force the dawn to sign.

---

I lean into the bathroom mirror

until glass becomes event horizon in fog.

On the far side, another me,

sleeker, sadder, infinitely more deserving,

waits like a minor god in a lesser world.

He raises one palm:

condensation writes a scripture only I can read.

I fog back commandments:

Thou shalt have no other loves before me.

The exchange rate between our pupils

is the only currency that matters.

The synapse becomes a disco ball of love.

I pay in dopamine tokens minted

with my visage, exact likeness only.

Anxiety is the gas-lamp flicker

between my own unread syllables.

I scan them for hidden watermarks of admiration,

swollen veins that prove the ink once passed through my heart.

---

I convene the board of directors

that lives behind my eyelids.

Agenda item only:

how to weaponize your tenderness

so it funnels back to me all awe.

I gift you curated vulnerabilities

then watch the resale value of my myth

spike on the secondary market of your gasps.

Your adoration is a shell corporation

through which I launder self-love,

turning dirty need into clean, taxable deification.

You are off-books labor.

---

---

You might like to check the song too:

---

That’s all from me, your turn to ask what if.

You can now buy me a coffee to support my work. Or food for the deer!