The Mirror – Poetry by Markus Hamence, April 2026

Forgive the mirror,
for the way it hesitates with you,
for the way it trims your light down
to something smaller, safer, almost believable.

It was never built to hold your becoming, your future, your now,
only your outline. Only your past.

Forgive it,
when it reflects doubt like it’s truth,
when it forgets the fire you carried in,
for the hurdles it puts in your way,
when it knows not the power you have within,
before you even learned your own name.

Glass can only echo what it knows
and it knows yesterday very well.

But you –
you are more than yesterday.
You are already somewhere ahead of this moment, somehow.
Already unfolding into a version,
the mirror hasn’t met yet. And is yet to see.

So don’t stand there waiting
for permission from your own reflection.

Step forward instead,
outpace that limitation,
let reality run to catch up,
with the quiet certainty in your chest.

And one day
without warning, without apology –
you’ll glance up.

And even the mirror
will have no choice
but to finally tell the truth.