BENEATH THE GLASS

You have looked into me
Your whole life
Without once
Looking through

Every morning
You stood before the surface
Straightened the face
Adjusted the posture
Rehearsed another day
You learned every angle
That kept the deeper image still
But glass remembers pressure
Even untouched
It knows when someone
Is afraid to look

I know this reflection
I carried it through bedrooms
Stations
Crowded halls
Through celebrations
Where my body arrived
Before I did
It never spoke
It never moved
It gave me exactly
What I wanted
The surface

Then stop asking the surface
To tell you what lives underneath
Come closer
Closer
Until your breath
Clouds the glass

Come and see
Your soul beneath the glass
Everything you turned away from
Has been living in the dark
Now you see
There's nowhere left to hide
The garden waits below you
Open your eyes
Open them

Something moves behind me
No
Behind the image
A corridor
Where no corridor should be
Walls descending
Past the frame
Pale roots crossing brick
Cold air climbing upward
I hear water somewhere below
I hear leaves
Where there should be stone

Good
Now you are looking
What is this place?
Yours

I have never been here
You have never been anywhere else
Why does it feel alive?
Because it is

There are rooms beneath your rooms
Weather beneath your weather
A field beneath the floorboards
Still receiving
Everything that falls

Come closer
The glass is opening

Come and see
Your soul beneath the glass
Everything you turned away from
Has been living in the dark
Now you see
There's nowhere left to hide
The garden waits below you
Open your eyes

If I go down there
What will I find?
Nothing
That did not already find you

No mask
Take it
No script
Burn it
No crowd
No witness

Then who am I answering to?
Come and see

Put your hand
Against the glass
Feel it move
There is earth
Behind the surface
There is weather
Under your skin
There is something
Down there
Waiting
For you
To arrive

Come and see
Your soul beneath the glass
Everything you turned away from
Has been living in the dark
Now you see
There's nowhere left to hide
The garden waits below you
Open your eyes

There are stairs
Yes
Mind the first step