{"sf1_id":1610703,"sf2_id":"noXXjKx1","title":"Glass","author":"Patcher","words":486,"posted_at":"2020-08-01T18:23:00.000Z","tags":["Poem","Poetry","Rat"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1610703-glass","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/noXXjKx1","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/c4/a4/c4a42e12-f8cc-426d-ac80-f3a90a4c8427","description":"#1 of Poetry\n\nI write poetry sometimes.","content":"While a hundred voices called out\n\nTo tell me what I was -\n\nAnd I wanted to listen\n\n- All it took was for a rat\n\nTo hold the mirror\n\nAnd in the rat's eyes I saw\n\nNo creature, but a coward -\n\nWho dared not join the sun\u0026nbsp;\n\nIn rising beyond the thousands of sunsets\u0026nbsp;\n\n- Content in dusk and dust and damnation\n\nThere lies the rat now -\n\nUnmoving, sinking\n\nDrowning in the marshes of time slowed down\n\n- And my questions remain\u0026nbsp;\n\nunanswered\n\nWhat is a memory, if not there to hold the dawn at bay?\n\nOr perhaps this is no reverie, but a waking dream\n\nFor the rat has taken to rest -\n\nAnd with it, the mirror too\n\n- Now broken\n\nLeaving only voices, there out in the darkness\n\nSometimes I catch a shard\n\nOf that broken reflection\n\nAnd I bleed\n\nAs it is crushed beneath the tides\n\nOf the sea of claws\n\nThe eyes that stare back are never\n\nMine\n\nI cannot see beyond what the whispers say\n\nNo more than my whiskers\u0026nbsp;\n\nAnd even those, at times, are lies in the night\n\nIt is amongst the reeds,\n\nWhere the shipwrecks from my childhood -\u0026nbsp;\n\nThose battles were fought\n\nWhere fire flew from our fingertips\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe moon was made of cheese\n\nAnd dragons were real -\n\nThat I would like to sleep\n\nYet every time my slumber starts\n\nA blinding light comes -\n\nA faerie calling out\u0026nbsp;\n\nLost and in need\n\n- And I cannot abandon that little glimpse\n\nOf daylight\n\nThen, in the blood\n\nA pool of water\n\nCool and quiet\n\nAppears\n\nAnd in it\n\nI catch the faintest frown\n\nOf a familiar stranger\n\nAnd I wonder if this is hell\n\nWhen, only in these cruel moments\n\nA mockery of a mirror comes\n\nTo show me hope\n\nWhen a thousand voices\n\nCome to tell me who I am\n\nPerhaps a little faith would serve me well\n\nYet the mirror showed me someone -\n\nNo, something -\n\nElse\n\nAnd I can't let go\u0026nbsp;\n\nFor when those voices sometimes whisper\n\nThey are not always my own -\n\nAnd in those pieces of the mirror\n\nThose eyes belong to no-one\n\n- And I can't help but question\n\nWhere the line between thought\n\nAnd madness\n\nIs drawn\n\nPerhaps dusk remains eternal\n\nAnd those flickers of daylight are but will-o'-wisps\n\nThere to lead me away from the mire of my own making\n\nAnd take away my rest\n\nPerhaps I am but a voice -\u0026nbsp;\n\nOne of many -\n\nout here\n\nIn the cool and empty\n\nNothing but a little white wind\n\nDancing in the wake of the ended world\n\nYet the rat also lingers\n\nThere with the mirror\n\nEven when drowned\n\nWithered\n\nGone\n\nIt is the scarlet warmth on my paws\n\nThat brings to light the question\n\nOf what - and where - and who\u0026nbsp;\n\n- Is holding those fragments\n\nOf broken\n\nBloodied\n\nGlass\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Poetry","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1611833-waves.json"}}