I write poetry quickly. I'm not one of those people who'll write a first draft, then spend days / weeks / months fiddling with the precise wording, etc. I'm sure this is a perfectly fine way to work, but not for me. It loses any raw emotion that's inherrent in a piece, which with this type of poetry is nigh-on essential, and can lead to it feeling over-worked (because, of course, it has been).

As such, I tend to write poems within half an hour (more often, fifteen or twenty minutes), and that's it. If something takes much longer, it will never be finished (like the five unfinished poems I have at the moment), or if it is will be hard-pushed and not very good. (As for those poems still on the go... if the total actual work time is only fifteen minutes, they still have a chance).

This is one of those rare occasions where I'm posting a poem I've just recently written. It doesn't often happen, and when it does they usually just get added to my stockpile -- aside from those where I've mentioned that I've posted it shortly after writing. I can't deny this is one I'm currently rather proud of... which means that by, at the latest, the middle of next week I'll be embarrassed by it with a passion. But that's just life for me and my work.

Just some brief notes before you read (ironic, that, considering this is probably my longest description ever): firstly, the working title was What I See, but that just didn't seem to suit the poem at all (though perhaps knowing that might lend something to it, if what it lends isn't already obvious); secondly, the use of "they're" in the third stanza is intentional, and is not a basic spelling error of "there" (though the fact it sounds just like it is obviously intended); thirdly, the last stanza rhymes, and the others don't -- this was also intentional; and finally, I realise the title isn't strictly reflected in the mirror in the preview image, but that's besides the point.

I bother to point this out because often people are picked up on things like this in comments, and I want to tell you here and now that it's meant to be like that. Anyone who does point them out will be firmly but politely told to read the bloody descrition.

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy the poem.