Mirror Reflection

I look into your eyes
So that you may see in mine
A reflection of your thought
In the mirror of my soul
I see you
Simple as you are
But you see nothing
Simple though I am
Yet when I walk away from you
A fragment does escape
And I leave a part of me
Behind
For you, my friend
To take.


I am leaving for hospital again in a short while. Tonight I will be back in the room of many cards, oxygen mask, and a military routine of food, drink and BP/temp checks. The doctors will arrive in state tomorrow and ask the dreaded question, "How. Are. You?" For a creative person this is the deadliest question of all. I try to think up clever, funny ways of answering it, sometimes the pain simply pours out of me in a torrent, other times I think how awfully, monotonously boring that question must be for others to ask. How is Shaista? How is Shaista? Better now? Getting better??? STILL ILL???
So don't ask how I am tonight. Tonight I am going back, away from the willow tree and the robins and the endlessly comforting air of home.
Thank you so very much for continuing to write, and care about me. Thank you Jeanette, Willow, Catherine, Maggie, Muznah, Maxine and Yin, and all my invisible subscribers - I'll be taking you with with me tonight, for the next stage of the battle.