Living In Dreamscape by Jasmine Stratton

[takethisforexample]

When I was a young girl, I had a fear of mirrors
They were always broken / strewn to the floor
I was stepping over shards like gruesome egg shells--
a reflection of my internal state.

I would hold my breath in passing, a white berry-knuckled grip
as Bloody Mary sidled right below the surface.
Her presence kneaded at me like ringworms.
I didn't have to utter her name,
it sounded just like mine.

When I washed myself, dosing in lakewater and gasoline,
I hoped to rip away the blisters and reveal something more loveable.
I wanted to tear away everything
my eyes touched, whatever oozed contempt.

The blood was nothing but a manifestation
of acknowledgement tucked beneath floorboards.
I was a living, haphazard instrument of terror,
anxieties scuttling like rats.

But at least I reacted, unstuck from
the repetitive Jabberwocky dancing upon the grave
of my dreams, those American ice cream cone dreams
I was taught in Mind Prison.

When the stars shrieked through the windows,
I squeezed through the visual blockade
I poured my syrup in digital molds / pranic pixel escapism
cherishing silence, protection
from pyrokinetics and the mind body connection.

My avatar was perfect, the more life
I siphoned from fruit flesh, my joie de vivre festered
in shallow spilling adoration.
I relished like a queen in being (un)seen.