Some days, you look in the mirror
and you see what everyone tells you you are – you see a beautiful girl, with a beautiful face – all sharp curves and smooth edges and ocean eyes – with a beautiful body. Some days, you see this, and you realize that this – this lovely girl who lives in the mirror – is what other people see when they look at you.
It makes breathing difficult, the air sticks in your lungs, because some days – most days – this is not the girl you see. But some days, you look in the mirror, and see a girl with smoky eyes and scarlet lips and perfect hair, and you think beautiful.
Some days
most days, really – you see someone else, who is more corpse than queen.
Those are the days that you haven’t done your makeup. Those are the days that you look in the mirror and see a blank canvas – just an emptiness lurking in your eyes, and a flatness at the edges of your mouth.
Some days
you look in the mirror, and you wonder what it is that people see when they look at you and say you’re beautiful. You wonder what they’re seeing that you aren’t, because this girl who is trapped in the other side of the glass looks like a caged beast, and you can’t see anything beautiful about her. She is too fat, too gaunt, with flat, lifeless eyes, a down-turned mouth, creases lining her face.
And it it hits you, suddenly, that this caged, miserable looking girl –
it’s you.
She’s just your reflection.
It’s days like this that make you wonder where this beautiful girl that everyone claims to is. Because you’re not seeing her.
The girl you’re seeing in the mirror is bland and boring and not at all beautiful.
It’s something you struggle with. It’s hard not to find fault with the girl trapped behind the mirror.
– N.M.
In The Land Of Gods And Monsters 