Impeded Introduction

I often wonder about this strange, shapeless creature bubbling up from behind every dust laced mirror and shallow puddle of cloudy, questionable liquid. That elusive thing I see inside each of these reflections; that scheming monster with its knife wound of a smile, is surely plotting something. Patiently fueling this unsettling taste of mistaken identity is all it seems to accomplish with that familiar and abrasive shadow seeping from its pores. Those splintering plywood teeth it hastily cobbled together fail to hide it's brutish silver tongue writhing in coils like some vile, putrid serpent. Two dry, cracking lips offer nothing to disguise its clearly rehearsed appearance as anything more than the swarm of insults and falsehood I know it to be. I can always feel when it's watching me, eyes full of oil and quicksand dripping effortlessly in all directions. Although inevitably that indiscernable gaze will begin to magnify and catalog every imperfection that has taken root to blossom across my resolve. It watches me as if some hungry jackal prowling beneath the empty, moonless void. Jowls foaming with anticipation, pacing back and forth motionless yet eternal from the twisted hovel it's built from recycled photons and physics