Polished Mirror by Valerie Parente

Everything is so much clearer
now that I’ve polished my mirror;
reflected on what went wrong
and I’m so beyond moving on.
That’s the thing about retrospect,
you learn from the bitterness,
from what you could not detect,
until it became past tense.
It’s not about what I want, now that I know what I need
and I’m ready to see all that I’m meant to see
with this perspective that’s been reflective
now that I’m finally clean.

– Valerie Parente (3-1-2021)