Mirror

What is it you see when looking in the mirror?

Do you see the powered woman in the bright red dress, bright lipstick smeared from a deep brush of passion? A dignified young lady with her hands clasped and eyes shining with a demand for justice? Or even a wild partygoer cloaked in nothing short of a magical rainbow that even the merriest of clowns would find themselves envious of?

Yes!

I hear you cry, flashing a smile as bright as the summertime sun and sweeter than the first bite of

that Hershey’s bar on Halloween.

That is who I am! I am everything, a beacon of–!

No. You are not.

What? B-but…I am…

No.

Stop

Lying. 

You

Are 

Lying.

The mirror, cold and reflective like the slickest ice, hides not the truth.

You see a young girl, face shrunken with a fear that reaches deeper than the holes you dug in the

mountains of snowbanks piled in your backyard. Eyes that show signs of wear and tear, not so dissimilar to the dull rags fished out of the bottom of Grandma’s dusty dresser, barely able to constitute a rag you’d clean your grimy

basement bathtub with.

You’d see a husk, slouched and devoid of any burst of warmth or minute wave of grief.

 

You know what you are.

Are

You

 Nothing.

Crash!

 

Now the mirror sits, shattered, shards of fractured glass sprinkled about the tile. Broken and lost to the shroud of cruelty the world masquerades as opportunity and happiness. Left to wither

away at the hands of fate and haunt your ruined heart, infested with dark spiders that spend their mediocre days gnawing away at what’s left.

Left of what?

You.

And

your

pitiful

dreams.