The mirror bends me into pleasant shapes

but others see me straight, the ugly form,

a sight to make a morbid mother mourn

But I am unaware of life’s mistakes.

Only in the mind does my story fit

the world; many there seem who want it so.

“No harm done”, they say, “if he does not know”

that his cacophony is the whole of it,

is misleading feedback, a disconnect;

hint of the gaping gap one might suspect

exists: wid’ning with the tick of time.

Our end? We learn! Stifle the anguished cry!

Too late, too distant, for a second try?