Look to no one but yourself

Under pen-name Eva Duval

She does the usual circus

Early morning commute

Reads the paper on the train

And the typecast office job.

Friends, a few

She is liked but not adored

In the no man’s land

Between life-of-the-party and wall-flower

She floats apparently at ease.

 

She is the every woman

The one in adverts

Swap the clothes and the faces

And they’re all the same

Just different casts

Of the same mould

 

She leaves the house

And passes the day as Miss Smith

But when she comes home

Behind closed doors

She is Fraulein Braun

Walking through to the lounge

To where he waits for her

Upon the mantel place

His cold eyes

Staring out behind the glass

 

“I am home, meine liebe” she says

Her fingers caress that stern face

Whose owner changed the world

For the worst

 

Here she is naked

Uninhibited

Free

The mask she wears outside

Is pulled off

Revealing an awful truth

 

She speaks to him

Through the picture

Through the years

And begins to let herself go

All restraint slips away

Under his cruel look

 

Miss Smith understands

The pain he created

But Fraulein Braun

Selfishly wants that pain

Unleashed on her instead

She doesn’t listen to the stories

Or what people say

Because now she is Eva Braun

And Eva Braun doesn’t know

The things Miss Smith does

 

Above the mantel place is a mirror

And the glass clouds under her breath

Her cheeks growing to a blood red

If he was here with her now...

But that cannot be

 

In the mirror’s reflection

Is a woman she does not recognise

Her lust has stained her eyes

A dangerous dark black

Her fingers touch the glass

And the woman copies her

Is it Miss Smith in the mirror

Trying to get out?

 

But the woman in the mirror

And the one in front of it

Are one and the same now

The two sides of her life

Inexplicably intertwined

 

No one else

Can say who she is

No one else

Can know the things she does

The only person she can look to

Is herself

 

Chin up

Eyes to heaven

God cannot save her

From the sins she is committing

 

And in her head he turns to look at her

That frown sending shivers down her spine

The freshly pressed uniform

The sparkling medals

The shine of his slicked-back black hair

It is too much to bear

 

Gasping

She is back in the room again

The shame suffocating her

An ecstasy turned to pain

And momentarily she is Miss Smith

 

But here

In this house

Alone

And his face staring out at her

She can only be

“Meine Liebe”

“Mein Eva”