• It started out like a dream. Part of me was blurred and in a haze, but part of me was there and completely coherent. I could never really figure out how it happened after everything was said and done. I just figured eventually this would all just go away. The old family motto hard at work, “ignore it long enough and it’ll go away”.
    But this wasn’t going away, wasn’t getting any better, though I could see it getting far worse. I tried to get the chunks out of my hair, I was still hazy enough to hold out hope that maybe this was all just some bad dream, but the more debris I brushed out in bloody clumps the more the haze evaporated and I was forced to think about the truth. I chose to shrug off the inevitable until later though, figuring that dealing with this present moment was hard enough without further complications, like actual thought.
    I caught a glimpse of myself in the caked over mirror and wondered how it had survived. Normally that was the first thing to go when this happened. But there, pristine except for some collateral carnage, was a mirror showing me what I was trying so desperately to ignore. Without really thinking about it I wiped off a bigger patch of the mirror so I could clearly see what I was… becoming? Had become? I couldn’t tell from here. This slowly lifting haze still obscuring what I thought I knew. It’d been a long time since I had even taken a second to think about it, thought being an enemy to avoid at all costs. But in this mirror which was slowly becoming clear, I couldn’t help but thinking thoughts that I knew had always been near. I reached into the sink without looking down and felt around for something to take my thoughts away, to take my eyes off of the mirror and be myself again. Or at least who I was making due with being.
    The haze had almost cleared and I could feel the panic sinking in. I could clearly see myself and I couldn’t stand it. My hand searched frantically in the sink but could find no purchase and my eyes kept showing me what I pleaded not to see. All this time and it was all still there. All these cuts that go much deeper than the flesh, that burrow in your heart and make your mind a terrible mess. I could see them just under the skin and I needed to cut them out. I could hear my heart inside my ears and feel my breath become more labored. My fingers clutched the porcelain with all my strength, threatening with no real worth. Useless in there inability to save me from my thoughts and this mirror… This ******** mirror that should have gone first. A mistake that I hoped would not reoccur.
    I felt my jaw clench and could see my pores ripping open with the thoughts that I could no longer contain. They squirmed and writhed behind my skin like maggots ready to be flies. My tongue began to wag behind my teeth attempting to give voice to the things I could not say. I could feel my teeth grinding, the last part of my defense, and I could feel them opening and myself giving in. I couldn’t bear to hear them but I knew what would be said, all these wretched thoughts that are so hard to contain and keep in.
    Then a chunk from my hair started to slide down, and my eyes darted, to watch it fall into the sink. I watched it slide down the drain and out of my life. Then I looked past myself in the mirror and saw the bed sheets move. A twitch, perhaps of memories lost or memories never made. But something which I could think on and never really think about. I let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. I could see the haze in my eyes slowly returning. I plunged my fist into the mirror so as not to see the face therein. I grabbed a shard from the sink and felt a smile that, before the mirror, I’d been holding back. I wandered over to the bed with the haze swiftly closing back in. Here was what I needed to pull me back away, a reminder that this ’dream’ wasn’t over yet.