Senryu : mirror

Reflections

mirror in their eyes
reflecting only distortions
like so many lies
the vision that they see
must be of someone else,
not me

by M. Nakazato LaFreniere
poem and image done when I was in my twenties

mirrors break, oh well
don’t care what they think they see
I am what I am

by M. Nakazato LaFreniere
written now

Back in my twenties, I used to worry about how people saw me especially since a lot of times it was different than I saw myself.  Some people saw me and some people only saw what they wanted me to be or sometimes they saw what I wanted me to be but wasn’t yet. After awhile I realized it didn’t really matter.

I don’t care how others see me. How people see you has a lot more to do with their own needs and hangups than anything you do most of the time anyways.  Some people are clear-sighted but they are a minority.

I don’t need to see myself or define myself. It’s simpler than that.  I just am.

 

References:

Poetics – Through the looking glass
dVerse ~ Poets Pub

The photo is  a print I did in a photo class back then with 3 negatives that I exposed separately.

  • Photo 1: me leaning against the mirror
  • Photo 2: a rose
  • Photo 3: the poem

I exposed them one at a time in the enlarger.  There is a white thumb  because like an idiot I was resting my hand against the paper carrier when I put in the mirror picture — duh! laughing.  And you didn’t know if you had the exposures right until after you developed the picture so there were a few throwaways. Things are much easier now in Photoshop