Shadow

Less than nothing, more than something,
I follow and I lead. Won’t you go with me? I
needn’t ask. We’re bound together, you and I,
twins born of the world but I motherless,
existing only as you exist
exploring only as you explore.
I am no symbol or significance,
a reflection and a question both
pitch black and translucent, a being without life.
I have no soul.
I beg of you, step back or sideways
out of your life and into mine
through the looking glass, through the still surface of a pool of water
through my wavering outline
so I may emerge, whole.
I am your shadow.
Not you and all you at once.
Let me step out from this mirror image world
where my being is controlled by all but me.
Let not the sun control me, nor the moon
Let not the night control me, nor the day.
Let not the world control me, nor the absence
of it all.
Let me breathe. Let me dance. Let me sing. Let me
laugh. Let me spring, please, free
from this dusky, gloomy, non-existent mirror-image life.