morning routine

every day, somehow,
I wake up,

drag myself in front of the bathroom mirror

to wash my teeth,

and as I carefully apply the toothpaste,

I dare a few glances at the man opposite me.

the man who could have been anything,

but only reached up to here.

I usually try to not think about him;

he responds in kind.

I open the cupboard on the mirror's side

for some floss, an earbud, the nail clipper, the sunscreen lotion,

and I see that shelf again,

the shelf with all the useless stuff,

the lens fluid, the hairbands, the tampons

- your shelf.

I wonder if I should do something about it.

if I should let you know

it's still your shelf,

in the same way

that you are still yourself.

I dare one final glance

at the stranger in the mirror

and close the cupboard.

another day has begun.

______

morning routine by Dimitrios Kokkinos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License