Through the looking glass

Oh great, now look what you did, you got me stuck in the mirror. Good going lily.

When I look in the mirror it's not the same persona that I envision myself as.

Yes, that's the problem with mirrors. They should show what's there, but some has a tendency to show what's not there.

Here's an interesting proposition;

How do we know what we truly look like? Only others "see" us through human eyes, but we can only see ourselves in the mirror or photographs.

Usually we consider that we know something, we also can build a mental picture based on having seen it. Can we truly know ourselves if we cannot see what we look like?

Well, it's just a question about defining "see" and "know" and "ourselves" and "truly" and so on..

Well what do you think though?

Eh, does your outer layer make up who you are? Because that's pretty much all the mirror shows. Not that it doesn't impact you in some way, because it surely can but the part that is effected by what is seen, is who you are. If you like yourself no matter what, then no mirror ever lies to you. But if you don't like yourself, then the mirror has a lot to say but you don't like anything you are hearing.

Other than that, they are only good for mazes and making sure you didn't leave any tooth paste on your lips.

That was beautiful Lily, thanks for posting. You're a real talented star, you know that?

Excellent poem Lily.

You're right about there being some grammatical errors, but they aren't horrendous and my philosophy is that "if it's at least readable, then it can be interpreted, and if it can be interpreted, then there will be potential for enjoyment".

There's no meter to the poem, but I like the little rhyme scheme you have going and it gives it a nice and pretty little flow.

Is it suggesting some sort of dual nature in all of us? The potential of what we can be? Or is it literally just an abstract tale about someone (possibly you) falling through the looking glass? Something else perhaps?

Anywho. Addressing some of the other posts in this thread:

You know that the mirror, other than flipping your image, doesn't warp what you (or your "outside layer") looks like too much because whenever you see someone else in the mirror, they generally look the same as when you're viewing them directly through your human eyes.

However. Our brain receives and interprets the frequencies of light waves in a certain way. Who's to say that some alien race in the universe wouldn't look at us and perceive the milky-to-dark tones of our skins as various orange tints because of the way their eyes evolved? Maybe their eyes are more sensitive to light and they perceive a glow around all of us? Maybe they see us as some color that we can't even possibly perceive?

Vision is merely your brain's interpretation of its physical surroundings. And these two can be warped by chemicals like LSD interacting with your brain and blocking up receptors.

There's no way to know what everything literally looks like down to the most precise of levels because our sense of vision, no matter how acute, will always warp the images it perceives in some slight way.

As for the philosophical definition of "vision", that's too relative for me to even wanna touch with a ten foot pole.

Whenever I look at myself in the mirror after a long day I'm always reminded of how human I am. Sometimes when I'm floating all over the place from this first-person-perspective and taking in my surroundings and thinking about as much as I can, I feel really cerebral.

And looking in the mirror really knocks this narcissistic illusion down a few pegs. It's nice.

I always feel more physically fit than I normally perceive myself and less cerebral than I normally perceive myself when I take a look in the mirror.

It's odd.

The mirror shows you what you want to see....... It depends on your state of mind....

The mirros shows all it can, the truth.

My head is alway filled up with fairytales, so, when I sit on the bus, or am out walking the dogs, I'm a princess in my own imagination. The poem is the answer to one of the many what-if-questions I ask myself. But to be honest, it's mostly words I think fit together. I like the fact that you ask questions, I'd like my poems to do that. I guess the waking up part is the reality...