THE MIRROR’S PRICE
Five dollars for damnation —
a bargain, we thought,
laughing at gilt-edged warnings
carved in tarnished frame:
“What you seek, seeks you too.”
Sarah saw it first:
her reflection aging backwards
until childhood trauma
wore her young face again,
bruises blooming like dark roses.
Then Mike noticed shadows
moving wrong in mirrored depths,
wearing his father’s drunken swagger,
bottles shattering in remembered darkness,
while his reflection cowered.
Jamie wouldn’t look at all,
but the mirror found her anyway,
showing empty hospital corridors,
flatlined monitors, white sheets —
futures she couldn’t outrun.
We should have known better
when the glass felt warm to touch,
when our fingerprints remained
like frost on winter windows,
collecting secrets like dust.
Each night, the mirror grows heavier
with the weight of what we’ve seen:
private hells reflected infinite,
fears fracturing and multiplying
in an endless hall of horrors.
Now Sarah’s bruises surface
on skin that shouldn’t remember,
while Mike hears phantom bottles break
in his empty apartment,
and Jamie’s cough tastes of prophecy.
We tried to break it —
hammers bounced off glass
leaving spiderweb cracks
that healed like living flesh,
hungry for more reflections.
We tried to sell it,
but it follows us home
appearing in different frames,
in windows, in puddles,
in chrome and polished steel.
Our phones show strangers’ faces,
computer screens flicker with phantoms,
every reflective surface conspires
to remind us of truths
we spent years burying.
Last night, Sarah vanished
into her bathroom mirror,
leaving handprints on glass
and a note: “It wants more.
Don’t look for me.”
Mike drinks to blur reflection,
but his mirror-self stays sober,
watching with his father’s eyes,
waiting for weakness,
wanting through the glass.
Jamie’s gotten thin as shadows,
avoiding her own image,
but we catch glimpses sometimes
of what she’s becoming:
transparent as truth.
I write this warning now
in fog on mirror’s face,
knowing words reverse themselves
to reach whoever’s next:
“Some reflections cost too much.”
We’re fading like old photographs,
becoming less substantial
than the fears we tried to hide,
while our reflections grow stronger,
waiting to step through.
Soon we’ll all be memories
trapped behind silver glass,
watching new owners discover
five-dollar damnation,
such a bargain, such a price.
Look closely in your mirrors tonight —
are you sure that’s really you
staring back with hungry eyes,
or something else that learned
to wear your face just right?
