If you placed a mirror in front of me
I would not know whose face looked back at me
I would not know whose eyes are looking so empty
Whose mouth is so downturned
If you placed a mirror in front of me
I’d wonder why the reflection looked so far away
I’d reach my hand into shattered glass to try and touch the distant squinting gaze of a crumpled girl
My hand bloodied from shards of my lost identity now grasps the emptiness that fills the inside of my
reflection in this broken mirror but when I try to pull it back into reality to find some bandaids
I no longer can
Half of myself trapped in this space in between the space where me and I live
And the other half longing for it
I can no longer find myself inside myself
I can no longer find the words that match my tears that
flow and
flow and
flow
These aren’t words I am writing to you
these are only fragments I could salvage from the floor of my broken mirror
I can no longer live a day of sun and moon
Awake and asleep
Light and dark
It seems I have an allotted time of feeling awake in the sun and it isn’t up to me
I can feel it coming
Darkness catching up to my wobbly legs
Crawling up my body til it chokes me and cuts off the oxygen to my brain
And maybe this is why this is all something I cannot understand
But it is something I will shake through
Body wracked with pain
From both a source unknown and too many sources to count
This is something I will sweat and then freeze through
Hot and cold
breathing unsteadily while the reflection moves father and farther away from me as
I
Stand
Still
Still
Still
Still
Everything stays so quiet outside of me
Loud inside of me
World moves in slow motion and I seem to watch in third person as
The girl in the mirror sits b r e a k I n g
Without
my
consent