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stamps & mirrors by Rose Muller
I’m licking a stamp like I am in the mirror. It’s worth eighty cents. I’m sending paperclips and a photo of Henry Kissinger to Mongolia. I’m not sure why. I don’t know anyone there. I think I wish I did though. I’m copying the mirror. This is of course not very hard. I always make the first move. I get so frustrated that I’m always the impulsive aggressive exciting one in this relationship, but I never see any split reaction where it’s trying to follow up. Besides it’s just sand and fire and a piece of silver. I think I should try glass-making, that would be fascinating. I try not to be boring. It would make time go so much slower. Chuck Palaniuk once said “God kills us when we get boring. We must never ever be boring.” I don’t think it’s true. I think it’s the opposite. I think God kills us when we get too interesting. Take for example, my grandmother. Completely real not a figment like mirror girl. My grandmother sits in her house all day watching television. Soap operas. The most exciting thing that happens to her is when the mail comes or her son or grandchildren take her out. She’s so trapped in lies and the mirror. She lives in the past. She’s going to live for eternity. Perhaps not, but I’m sure it seems like eternity to her. I would think death might be sweet when it arrives, because the wait is so agonizingly slow. Because she’s boring now and the TV is her only world. And it lies to her. TV is a mirror too. On or off. I like watching the television blank. I sit in the living and watch my reflection in the dark portal. I look into that mirror and I talk to the girl in there. I scorn her for her audacity. She’s sort of pretty. She says she knows the secret of the universe….she knows how many stamps go on a person. Mirror girl tells me I’m worth eight 90-cent stamps, a box of old photographs, some glitter glue, and a rubber glove. Henry Kissinger is worth five 37-cent stamps and millions of dead bodies. The mirror can and wants to turn us into objects. And so can words. I’m not ink. But all you see is ink. It’s flat. In reality we realize ink is flat, it doe not make a person. It’s the same with mirrors. Look into it and see that you become flat and two-dimensional. Mirrors lie. Because the mirror told me I’m worth objects. It sees nothing real. I’m worth more. Because I can’t be an object. I see through you. I’m worth a life. One life. And I’ll take that road.

Original Release: May 2005, Version I