Give the lights a sickly yellow glow
Let me reflect
The scribbled-on stall doors and brightly-colored posters
Framing her face, to remind her
That she’s trapped
here, with her thoughts and a rancid smell
Mixed with clorox.
Smudge your fingerprints upon me
To distort the world even further, turn her skin
Ashen, make her wonder
If there is a stain on her shirt,
Or something else she can’t wash off.
Splash me with murky sink-water
So the droplets dry on her image like tears,
And the rushing faucet that she can't
Figure out how to turn off
Rings in her ears.
Make it so she can't look away, let me mold
Her opinions of herself like modeling clay,
So that when she leaves
She knows she’ll come back to face my
Smile, cracked by a long-ago fist
As if the thing staring back will ever change.
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