Face-Off

It's no mystery there is something standing between
me and my dreams. It's not the most formidable block,
nor the biggest. About my height, the same eye color,
all about me; this adversary is me, but a shade of me
that takes the most silver and shining of my dreams
and devours them slowly. It doesn't even need to eat.
It just likes that expression I make when I'm betrayed.

I'm old, but I'm not even old enough to remember when
this all started. When I started stalking myself, learning
my weak points, reading all about avalanches; avalanches
and explosions. I have moments or months of satisfaction,
but I steal from myself, I steal from myself; anyway, war
was declared long ago for the fuck knows what reason,
and I'm so hungry I sometimes forget to dream dreams.

I don't know where this adversary me sleeps. My guess,
mirrors. He sleeps in mirrors & wakes when he hears
me coming. I won't answer his taunting about the where
and how and who of my face. At least we both rest
during my morning coffee. Call it jungle watering-hole
courtesy. No one wants to bloody the waters. I kill
myself  more privately than that. My arms are aching

with the weight of everything I don't have, but carry
in my heart anyway. And the thing of it is, the thing
is: neither of us can wholly kill the other. We get it,
symbiosis sucks, but what's the alternative, this late
in life? Whatever of wishes either of us get, we have
to share it with the opposite. We'll always be stuck
being me. I imagine we will still bicker and lacerate

each other with words, when ever I'm close to feeling
I've worked for something good. But, more and more,
we don't as much. There is cease-fire, with a thin strip
of neutral between us. If not trust, call it enlightened
self-interest. We carry it in my pockets; holding it
in my breath; we keep it at the borderline between
the mirror and me. We argue about what comes next.