Poetry Camp (February)
Fox-Trot-9

Day 2: Outing Herself

The door lies open to the void
   Beyond the light of reason,
And yet she stands before the threshold
   Out of time and season.

She takes a step across the bound
   That dims her wildest dreams,
And in that void she sees a room
   Filled with her moans and screams.

She turns around, but there's no door
   To lead back through the void,
And so turns back and sees the mirror,
   Her self-esteem destroyed.

How many times has she gazed through
   Into her very soul?
How many times has she denied
   The truth writ on the scroll?

Her every step rings on floor tile
   In footfalls like a bell,
Clouding her mind with ghouls and ghosts
   She used to love so well.

These creatures drift before her eyes
   Within the mirror's sight;
These ghouls and ghosts are still her friends
   When she awakes in daylight.

She peers a little closer still
   And sees herself alone,
Faking her smiles and conversation,
   Her heart a bleeding stone.

If they should know her hidden self,
   Would they still be her friends?
If truth proves hard for them to stomach,
   How can she make amends?

She walks towards her cursèd mirror,
   And in her hand she clutches
A vorpal dagger in her grip,
   And reaching out she touches

The surface of the mirror clear,
   As if she wants to feel
The confidence she used to know,
   The friend she needs to heal.

Behold! Within that dark reflection,
   A shape begins to form
Into the shape of her soul-sister;
   Her passions start to swarm.

She yearns to tell her friend the truth
   And shuffle off this weight:
She wants to tell her that she loves her
   But cannot bear the fate

Of losing someone she holds dear,
   A sister that she chose;
For friends are sisters that you choose
   To bear your joys and woes.

The chance of losing someone dear
   She cannot bear to take;
She'd rather die than risk such love
   That she would hate to break.

And so she raises up the dagger
   And points it at her chest:
"It's time to take my rest," she says,
   Plunging it to her breast!

What's this? Whose hands are these that hold
   The blade from plunging deep?
She looks into the mirror clear
   And feels her heart to leap.

Her friend's no longer in the mirror
   But in this very room,
Holding her hands, now face-to-face—
   Keeping her from her doom.

"W-why?" she says, but ere she speaks
   Another word of wonder,
Her dear soul-sister steals her kiss,
   Tearing her dream asunder.

Her dream then shatters into shards,
   And she takes one more gasp,
And now she wakes upon her bed,
   Sharing her phantom clasp

Within the hands of her dear friend
   By her bedside, oh-so-near,
A worried look on her friend's face,
   About to shed a tear.

She bolts upright in bed and stares,
   Sucking in one full gasp,
In shock to see her on her bed,
   Her hands inside her grasp.

She's speechless, cannot even speak;
   Her friend has this to say:
"Don't ever do it," and she spies
   The pills in her dismay.

Her friend takes all the pills away
   And throws them in the trash.
She looks at her dear friend with tears
   Now trailing down her ash-

White face, disgusted with herself:
   "I'm sorry! I just don't—"
She's pulled into her friend's embrace:
   Her friend now says, "I won't

Ever—ever—leave you, got that?
   You'll always be my friend,
No matter what they say or do!"
   And so their bonds amend;
Tears trail their cheeks as they both hug—
   Soul-sisters to the end.

(To be continued . . .)

A/N: Oh man, I didn't expect this ballad to get this long. Its not the longest. I've written some that are longer, so compared to those, this one's short and sweet.