What If…

What If…

I hate What Ifs.

That question haunts me, taunts me,

dragging tears down my face

and twisting my stomach into knots.

All day long the What Ifs hound me.

New ones wake me up at night.

What if I had called? What if I had been there?

What if, what if, what if…

STOP!

The What Ifs are not levers

to a time machine that rectifies,

That deletes, that cheats death.

What ifs can not, do not, will not

Restore life.

And yet, they march, uninvited

Into my day and linger long into the night.

What if they just went away?

Stranger in the Mirror

I look at the stranger in the mirror.

Where have I seen him before?

The face is only slightly familiar to me.

I would not recognize this face,

If I saw it coming toward me.

I have not seen THIS face before.

This face that has only eyebrow hair,

Is a stranger to me.

He stares at me from my mirror

Wondering who is looking at him.

Who do I see in that face?

My parents play peek-a-boo

In that elder’s face

That mirrors back to me.