Unmasking Perception: A Poetic Journey into Judging Character #Dailyprompt

Are You a Good Judge of Character?

i. The Mirror
I asked the mirror this morning—
its silver lips formed words I could not decipher.
You, yes you,
do you see what lies beneath the skin,
or do you merely skim the surface?
A friend once told me:
"Judgment is a painting.
Some people dab, some slash,
and some stare at the canvas until the colors rearrange themselves."
But who holds the brush?

ii. The Stranger in the Crowd
You saw him there, didn’t you?
The man with the mismatched socks
and a laugh that died in his throat.
What did you decide about him?
Was it his shoes,
the way his shoulders hunched,
or the weight of his gaze
that led you to file him away in the drawer labeled "untrustworthy"?
He, too, has drawers in his mind,
and one has your name on it.

iii. The Judged
She says to herself,
"They think they know me.
My laugh too loud, my silence too sharp.
My eyeliner too winged,
my truths too crooked."
She once stood in front of a jury of friends
and declared,
"I am not the sum of your glances.
I am the commas in your sentences,
the hesitation before your questions."
Do you hear her?

iv. The Questioner
Are you sure of yourself?
Do you, in your wisdom,
detect the liar beneath the grin,
the saint cloaked in disarray?
You think you’re clever,
but your own shadow has lied to you.
Once, you mistook a poet for a banker,
a fool for a king.
Now you walk through the garden of faces
plucking petals of "I trust" and "I don’t trust."

v. The Knotted Thread
There’s a man threading a needle
at the edge of the world.
He sews the fabric of your assumptions
with strands of his own doubts.
Each stitch asks:
Are they who they seem?
Are you?
He hums as he works,
a melody of "perhaps," "maybe," and "not quite."
You do not see him, but he is there,
unraveling and reweaving you.

vi. The Voice in Your Ear
They say:
"You are intuitive.
You know people."
They say:
"First impressions last."
But what do they know?
They do not hear the symphony
that plays in your head,
a cacophony of guesses and gut feelings,
a violin of suspicion,
a drumbeat of doubt.

vii. The Mask
She wears it well, doesn’t she?
The woman with the smile like scaffolding,
the man with the handshake that lingers too long.
You think you’ve pierced the veil,
seen the gears behind the clock.
But their masks are made of mirrors,
and in their reflection
is the face you fear most: your own.

viii. The Confession
I am no oracle.
I have judged wrongly,
and I have judged rightly
for the wrong reasons.
Once, I called a villain "friend"
and a savior "enemy."
I fell in love with a façade,
then hated the truth it concealed.
And you? What of your mistakes?

ix. The Chorus
We are the many who have judged.
We have been betrayed by the glint of an eye,
the quirk of a smile.
We have labeled, filed, discarded,
only to find ourselves judged in return.
Are we good judges of character?
Are we good characters to judge?

x. The Final Question
And so,
when you sit across from the table,
eyeing the stranger,
the lover,
the friend,
do you know them?
Do you know yourself?
The question whispers itself endlessly:
Are you a good judge of character,
or merely a character in a story
someone else has judged?

#JudgingCharacter #Poetry #HumanNature #Perception #SelfReflection #TrustIssues #IdentityCrisis #PoetryLovers #PsychologyInsights #Introspection