My disease is perfect understanding.
When you strike me, I don’t even feel the blow -
I feel the tremor of whoever broke you first.
I see the ghosts standing behind you in the dark, guiding your hand.
How can I hate a puppet?
How can I hate a haunted house?
I look at the terrible things you do to me,
and I know exactly which fractured piece of your mind
is making you do them.
I sanitize your cruelty until you are completely innocent.
But the violence is still here, breathing in the corner.
It needs a place to go. It demands a target.
If I decide that you are the victim,
then someone in this room has to be the monster.
I walk to the mirror.
The reflection does not blink.
He simply reaches through the glass,
hands me the mask,
and watches me sew it to my own face.