The Mirror Between Us

Beloved,

you keep handing me pieces of myself

I swore I had lost long ago.

Sometimes you offer them gently,

as a flower opening in the night.

Sometimes you hurl them

like stones at my chest.

I may mistake you for the stone, at times . . .

I may believe you are the wounding source.

But in truth, you are only the holy mirror,

the divine accomplice

who dares to show me

what I deny.

Still, and knowing that,

Your reflection burns

Like sun on closed eyes

Demanding they open.

Agony . . . and even so . . .

I vow to stand in the fire with you,

to be transformed in the flame of your reflection.

For love is not the silk curtain

that conceals our scars.

Love is the hand that pulls the curtain back,

the laughter that says,

“Here!! Look, even this is us.”

Repair is not a trick of apology,

not the patching of a broken vase.

Repair is the art of two souls

turning toward each other,

trembling and unmasked,

whispering,“I hear the echo of my shame in your chest.

I see your skin, tatooed with my bitterness and rage.

Resistance has shaped our bond. Still . . . We are here, now, beloved.”

May we stumble and rise

a thousand times,

until every wound

becomes a doorway,

and every rupture

sings us home.