Mirror Image Poem by Henry Tong

My world and I are separated
by a crystal clear mirror-
which duplicates my body and soul
and imprints them in the world.

Somehow I begin to impersonate
myself, indulged by the man
on the other side, far from reach.

When lights shed upon my image
I'm filled with ecstacy;
when darkness averts my body
I'm engrossed with rage.

An inverted world has nothing
but reality, which I'm not allowed
to observe, if I stand upright.

I see Time is measured by the specks of dust
that accumulates on the mirror, blocks my sight.
I grow as fogs of mystery unfold, as fairytales
are doomed, as judgement goes poor, as sentiments
can be fooled, and logic dismissed.

Who shall then survive in the society
and help others clear their mirrors.

I once read my real self raw, unpolished,
unaffected, poorly calculated, but
optimistically poetic,
in the clear mirror;

I now earn myself a facade, a silken tongue,
a wrinkled smile, a diploma, but also
a withered dream caged in avarice,
in the dusted mirror.

Dust kills the clearness of mirror
attributing me a settled uncertainty,
a shattered identity, a fake presumption
that in some days,

I know where my real self rests upon.
I know when reflections of life resurrect.
I know how truth and light are unveiled.
I know who to dust off the obscure, who
stops the world from idling its ground.

Now I strive to gaze into the aperture
of the dust, and, when a tint of sunbeam
projects light onto the mirror, reflecting
the old image blocked in a century,
I wonder, in a false illusion,

"Is that Me? "