The Mirror and She

Liv, 9th - Oakland, CA
The oak wood-stained piece of glass hangs to the left of me as I take a deep breath and step into an ever-repeating destiny of looking in and seeing…and seeing..her. Her hair doesn’t abide, and she’s got legs too strong. Her torso’s not an hourglass, and those legs? Way too long. And her nose doesn’t look like those she views on her cell. Her cell of a body she’s trapped in and has nobody to tell.  And she spends hour after hour with the brushes and the blushes because she thinks without it, nobody gushes over her non-apparent beauty. So she spends dollar after dollar making herself enough because she cannot go an affirmation in the mirror without a tear because it’s just a soundwave of noise and a forgotten voice who doesn’t trust herself.

So she goes to the beauty store where every product is sold out because every girl wishes to be another girl who goes to the store to be the other girl who wishes she wasn’t in this world but nobody knows that. Because the limited lipstick enforces a smile on her lips that fools everyone. Except her. But we’ll move back to the girl in the reflection, who struggles to love, every compliment,  another deflection. To the girl in the mirror who refuses a plate, because the diet she saw said that maybe this tender steak would make her look bigger so now she has to fake that she is full when she is starving. She is told she no longer acts like herself anymore, but she doesn’t remember herself anymore, as she survives on autopilot which everyone can easily ignore.

So she lives on, apologizing for her wrongs with I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry! She lives for validation of her own creation, growing up quickly with the sole fixation on other people loving her. Just as she cannot love herself. Easy. she shaves her body hair for you because even though it doesn’t bother her it’s your skin right? She styles hair every morning even though it doesn’t matter to her it’s your hair, right? And she’s too tired to fight this fight because she will never be perfect in this world’s light. If nothing else, she’s enough for you. She is perfection if only she knew. Layers upon layers of makeup, and abundant coily hair. Good morning mirror, I glance up. Who is she in there?