Do You Still Practice Smiling In The Mirror?

Do you still practice smiling in the mirror?

You never quite got it right

You wrote poems about love, spiderwebs, and your chattering teeth

About the endless horizon in someone's eyes and the gravitational pull on your heart

You learned you can be replaced while you were staring at your own reflection

With each breath, you hoped the mirror would shatter in front of you

Sounding like a standing ovation to your best effort

Like an epilogue to your act On days like these

We can't make a metaphor about your soul and the fragility of glass

And I'm truly afraid you know how to use a broken mirror

On days like these

The courage to write the poem about the days you never lived

Can only be found in the hug of a friend you never had

We still practice smiling in the mirror

Because this is what we do

We practice

We write poems about death,

Our friends

And our chattering teeth

You might say a broken mirror can still reflect

Like a metaphor about the resiliency of our existence

But we can't make metaphors anymore

On days like these

We breathe

We break

And get replaced

There isn't anything left to say Just smile and pick up the pieces