The Screaming Mirror... Poem by RIC BASTASA

who wants to show pain?
no one wants to show it and be pitied

pity can kill
makes you shrink like
dough pressed
with a hammer

everyone wants to show a happy face on the road
people walk and
each smiles to
everyone

and when the back of the body
steals a distance

everyone is back to their serious faces again

twisted lips, crashing teeth
misshaped jaws
gnashing fingers

early that
evening

i show pain in the mirror
like the palms
of my hands

the mirror laughs
it is telling me it is not me
and i look funny with it

it says i do not fit well as a beggar of affection
it teases me
the way sissies sashay on the
shiny tiles of the
malls

that when in pain i look like a liar
an old Pinocchio
with a broken wooden nose
reaching the door
from the arm
of my chair
to the hands of the
railing

i insist that this time it is true
my tears are rolling like a river on the tributaries of my cheeks
the mirror
they are boulders
now

the mirror
finally screams for help
of some nearby shadows

i am another movie.