Choosing Your Mirrors

You look at the ruins,
walls askew, wood rotten,
glass broken.

Ceilings and doors
no longer meaningful.
An utter lack of paint.

No longer a protection,
or protected from the elements,
you look

And see yourself,
as if in a mirror.
Your mind knows that is no longer true,

knows that your have suffered
the indignities and pain of restoration,
but your heart still sees the broken truth.

It is not a bad thing, this remembering,
or even painful. It is simply history
you do not care to erase.

About this poem

I tend to see myself in abandoned buildings, fully aware of how broken I have been, fully aware I am still on the journey back. Fully aware that restoration never really ends.

Tom