Reflection Replaced

I find my person to be defined by my reflection in others. What they think of me, what they do to and with me. These are the most important things in me - they are what spill over into the world. Anything that is completely internalized can change nothing.

I am no stranger to identity crises, but one thing I have always been able to lean on was my reflection in the actions and words of others. Once suddenly denied these reflections, or once they become distorted, I am uprooted. I no longer know myself. Those precious things that were granted to me only by reciprocating, they are no longer. It is not a wise thing to root so closely into these few actions. But given enough temptation... There was no refusing.

Some trinkets are too shiny to pass up. Some moments are too grand, too confusing, too involving to not completely dissolve into. And once in a while, even beauty outshines every other, regular concern. But once you make either of these things yours, you set yourself up for defeat. Trinkets are but trinkets, moments are fleeting and one way or the other, beauty will be lost.

My beauty was but the reflection in the eyes of a true love. Without that, my laughter rings hollow, my eyes are clouded and my self... As fragile as love can be. Now, someone else is in the reflection. Mine is gone and I am stuck in the mirror, looking out as someone has replaced me, superceded me.

Hatred Comes Hard

When forced to completely submit to the will and whim of someone else, I find I lose myself in a shroud of unknown. I no longer recognize my own feelings, and I am unable to easily feel. It is an absurd situation. The remedy? Crank up the volume. I must recognize the feeling that I want to express. I must recognize it and then, through listening to the music, channel it. And thus, music becomes a bridge. But it is absurd. To only be able to connect with myself through an amplifier of sound. To become so complex that I can no longer understand myself but for drowning out the complexity in a shriek of anger that is not even my own.

I have become the soundtrack of the talented musicians that I so envy. Yes! Envy! I feel it because the song allows it. It is one feeling of those that are not subject to the merciless destructive interference of my choice poison. But every time it ends, I become someone else once more.

Rewind. Rewind. Rewind again and bask in -- is it anger now? And of course...

"I'm filled with violent woe. I'm filled with complex woe -- still breathing"