Into The Looking Glass

The outside world was unknown to her,

But she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

I knew I was dying. I knew it would happen too soon.

Should she put love on trial? It would feel so vile.

For what is love if it doesn’t make you smile?

Then it dawned on her, a rather sudden epiphany.

It hovered in her brain, ringing like a timpani.

Perhaps it was a fly that buzzed by when she died.

But it could not be death for she stood up taking life for another ride.

Flames of blue, yellow, red and multi-hue surprised her by being so cool.

Sitting by the window she became unsure of what to do.

Swirls of tunnels and an almost endless drop made her feel this place too public like a frog.

Muted thuds forced her to turn ‘round to see a three-headed beast, a pet perhaps, but really a dog.

That would be too gracious for a place situated like this.

It was clear this creature belonged to another. So any thoughts of ownership were simply a wish.

“Emily, I am here to welcome you.”

Quill, Ink, and Paper are my friends. So who are you, the source of this coo?

“I am Master, the yet unidentified. Someone who you spent so much time personifying.”

Could it be you are D— The truth of the matter left her mind sighing.

There were no witty words at a time like this that would suffice.

Emily knew vanity led her to this little corner office paradise.

Most would believe she should brood,

But there was fun in her visceral solitude.

This final window is her heaven plodding around such dearth.

She cannot help but approach it with joyous mirth.

Beautiful visions minced with haunting words, once upon a time I did say I was one of the lingering bad ones.

An antique silver mirror appeared in her hand. The gruff voice of ether surrounded her and said, “As above, so below, there are jobs in Hades too. Here’s the one assigned to you.”

“This mirror shows you the life of a wayward, turbulent soul. Looking into this mirror you have just one goal.”

She turned the mirror towards herself, perhaps a quick peek in, but then…

“You will help me make people account for their sins.”

Circumference was her business amongst the living.

She looked harder than most, which is why this position is so fitting.

It was her job to hold up a different lens for us.

And just like her writing, it will be easier for these souls to ignore the looking glass than try to understand it without fuss.

In life I struggled to understand what it meant to be alive.

And in death I must race to understand what it means to just get by.

What makes a few of us so different from others?

I had a father, mother, sister, brother; lovers, and yet I get a window seat.

Now I am tasked with triaging the afterlife of another.

I am blessed beyond compare and cannot wait to see who I meet.

My looking glass gets to capture one’s life in details and desires.

The landscape of the mind in its final hour.

As she looks through the window of her soul filled with memories,

She wondered how this unfinished letter ended up being her eulogy.

This is my letter to the world that never wrote to Me—

Her message is now committed to hands she cannot see.

All I ask is judge tenderly—of Me.

Now she remains entranced gazing from this vast, endless window.

And here she thought she would become an eponymous hero.