I don’t much use mirrors. I never did.

When I was very young I did, to a normal amount,
I was in theater and loved acting so
I looked at myself to do my make-up for shows.
Even that was not often:
dress rehearsal and the one, two or three shows twice a year…

In college in the late sixties things changed.
Changed significantly.
Changed by circumstances,
changed by life and
changed by the ego melting force
of lysergic acid diethylamide:
LSD.

I stared into a mirror on acid for a long time, more than once,
even though some said that doing that was a very bad idea.

My ego was changed. Completely. Forever.
I never acted on the stage again.
I practically stopped looking in mirrors altogether.

It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul.
I stared through those windows, down into my own soul
too deeply, too often, too long.
What I saw, in all its complexity, was terrifying, life altering.

I never was able to love myself enough quite the same again.
I was never able to stop fearing that I would see that
I was not strong enough to keep myself from ending my own life.
Yet somehow, I survived and my mutilated ego
sustained me to be the person I am today, but…

    mirror, mirror on the wall, I still look at you rarely if at all…