I was framed

Oh, honest silver sheet! 

For thou art salvation from embarrassment, a mercurial ounce of prevention, a rainbow against the backdrop sky.
The setting bedazzles, they way in which you show us the beauty in our characters! Hats, coats with arms, lip-sticks, eye-glasses, ear-rings, gemstones, crowns, shiners, and horror, grotesqueness. Yes, you spare no favoritism-beveled truth be told thou fairest
outlines of all, in my mirror, mirror, on the wall!

See,
when we look in the mirror,
we face some reality we do not normally
see.
We trust this vision as the reflection of what may not be
overt or obvious to us; be it a booger, a stray hair, a smudge or streak, a deep hole or incoming car in our periphery-
All of which may be larger or closer than they appear.

Yes, the mirror is trustworthy. Like the spectacles, a symbol of knowing (more) perhaps. And mirrors are crisper, more full, than the ghostly reflections we may casually cast on windows.
There is a complete sense of self when one looks into a wall mirror-although not nearly as intricate and complex as many fine artists portrait paintings-
and yet there is honesty there. That may be the difference.
Here, in a mirror, we can get a real glimpse of what others may see when they look at us,
which is why we rely so much on these household props and inventions of the mind.

How do I look (to you)? I wonder-
how I look-how I may seem (to you). One must not
look at anything specifically tied to their own shape in order to catch a true glimpse-
like an idea or impression, of how others may see us-at all.
It seems I still do not know more than my own impressions...

dreamer--bookworm--pretentious--removed--absorbed--crazy--incomplete

thoughtful--learned--superstitious--unique--enraptured--inspired--to be continued

Crystallized panes pressed together, the kiss smudge, the make-up that makes us up, smears, sets, and powder presses. Preen-for others sake-bejeweled and adorned in folded prismatic layers that arrest our white spirit and sever it into slices of complimentary tones called auras or imaginary glows.
One never knows if this shows...until they peer into a mirror.

We normally see reality when not looking for it.  Ghosts among us (our past),
more present when we pretend other things are more real.
When facing the mirror we clearly see the flaws in our story,
the holes in the rough outline, the disconnected points of interest,
and finally,
the foci of the somber stare,
where our eyes appear closer than normal and pores open larger than they seem to need to be to keep our insides from falling out.
What is presented here is a lie.
It is all imaginary. It is the way we want to seem.
The clothes we buy, the hairs we cut, the smells we emit and face muscles we choose to use,
all are practice,
pretending and proposing that props and signs were just as important as their utilitarian intended need.
A need to know how things work,
we check in(side) the mirror, we avoid reflections such as these, and fear the misconception of chance, how light goes through some holes and not others and escaping solid shapes and walls was the first glimmer of finding oneself in shadows. 

This is the art of puppetry.

Here is my hand. Come see with me. This is you-and that was me,
that is you, this is me. Who stands behind whom?

Quod fuimus, estis:

Quod sumus, vos eritis

(What we were, you are;

What we are, you will be)

Painting By Charles Martin Hardie (1858-1916) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.