Scrawled at the top, scrawled again along the bottom, the way it repeats in a head: I am a monster. I cannot believe the things that I do. Say it enough and it stops being an apology and becomes a description. The paper's bottom edge gives up being straight.

In between, the picture won't settle on one image. A bottle stands like a monument. A dog may pass through. Small white figures hold out their hands — reflections, or the people it happened to, or the same person at every age. Where the speaker's face should be, another head. At the edge, a huge pale face watches — the mirror.

The surface works the way the sentence does. Lines taken from somewhere, laid over other lines, half-removed, drawn again. Things added and then let go of — you can see them under the letting go. Things discovered only because something else was scraped away. Nothing is illustrated; everything is superimposed. What's left is every attempt at once, which is what a conscience may look like.