Salt And Ink

Reflection

I fill the cup with tears-

It threatens to overflow

I stare at my reflection.

Stare at my greatest foe.

A droopy-eyed loser stares back.

I lift my finger and etch

A vicious scar across his cheek

It hovers, ever so dispassionately

Upon the ugly visage it was set free to distort

Snaking, slithering up its eyes-

Then disappearing in a flash.

A scar so piercing to the eyes

Possessing an ugliness of distinction

An ugliness rivalling that of the face

It was ordered to mutilate further

Through the stealthy ripples it created.

A scar of such audacity

Succumbing to the veil of time

Killing itself moments after

It was drawn on the lifeless face below-

Leaving it as smooth and ripple-free

As before.

I breathe a single sigh.

A single sigh of longing.

Of envy and untameable desire.

Envying my lookalike staring at me

Through the flimsy sheet of water.

He had my eyes.

He had my hair.

My nose.

My skin.

My movements.

But oh, he also had an advantage

Over his living twin

That fuelled the tumult of lust

Now gathering swift momentum in my mind.

The ability to make scars vanish.

The bliss at not worrying about the damage they'd cause

The sheer glee acquired by staring at them

Dissolving into the depths of the water.

It was the ability to let them heal

The power to make them fade away

Like a call of the flirtatious cuckoo

Against the dimming curtain of the evening sky.

I stare at the scars on my body

I stare at the ones on my soul

They stand out bright red against my skin-

The trophies of my woe.

And bead after bead falls into the cup

And now it overflows

I cry, and he cries along with me

My reflection below.