HEAUTOSCOPY
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful,
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Mirror by Sylvia Plath
Using photograph as a tool I inspect who is this performer who is never still, never not performing.
Who am I when I am not performing? Who am I when nobody is looking?
I have been aware that my age or any other status in the society does not defines who I truly am, but just lately I began to question how can I see my true self.
Every time, when I have thought I have found my true self, it has turned out to be my mere performance.
Once I think that I have found real me, I discover that there is another layer beneath this seemingly solid surface which once I thought is my true self.