{"id":1101,"date":"2024-08-25T15:47:29","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2024-08-25T15:47:30","modified_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:47:30","slug":"dusty-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/2024\/08\/25\/dusty-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"Dusty mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"897\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem85.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-184\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem85.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem85-268x300.jpg 268w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem85-768x861.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>New day begins.<br>You waken, bleary-eyed.<br>You see the sheets.<br>You turn.<br>You see the ceiling<br>with stripes of light and dark &#8211;\u00a0<br>eternal battle,\u00a0<br>its pattern etched on retinas from days<br>and weeks, and years of repeat exposure.<br>You move inexorably to your cup of coffee,<br>unknowingly repeating the procedure<br>of brushing teeth<br>and putting on the clothes,<br>glance in the mirror with routine regret<br>and follow your daily train of thought:<br>&#8220;It could be worse, but then, it could be better\u2026&#8221;<br>But suddenly the dusty mirror surface<br>distorts the image of your face and room<br>a little more than usual and you<br>look once again.<br>Your train of thought derailed,<br>you stop and think &#8211;<br>again.<br>Realisation<br>hits like a brick &#8211;<br>you see the dusty mask<br>you built through habit,<br>layer upon layer<br>of expectations,\u00a0<br>making life routine<br>and liveable.<br>But underneath the mask<br>the horrifying emptiness of space<br>just barely warmed up by random motion<br>is looking back with no intent or care.<br>And then your body fills with acrid joy<br>of life and thought,<br>of you, against the odds,<br>being occasionally self-aware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New day begins.You waken, bleary-eyed.You see the sheets.You turn.You see the ceilingwith stripes of light and dark &#8211;\u00a0eternal battle,\u00a0its pattern etched on retinas from daysand weeks, and years of repeat exposure.You move inexorably to your cup of coffee,unknowingly repeating the procedureof brushing teethand putting on the clothes,glance in the mirror with routine regretand follow your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[180,181,179,23,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}