Mirror

Read along the music, just the music

https://soundcloud.com/adaislin/smoke-daughter

If your mirror was to ever have a mouth…

It would wake you up in the morning

It would tell you the dress you have on looks gorgeous on you

And your legs don’t look too big

“Stop hiding them they’re beautiful”

It would help you fix your winged liner

So you don’t have to spend hours trying to make your eyes look the same

“shorter on the left, more to the right, use a Q-tip, ok no no stop it let’s forget the wing”

It would whistle in the silent boredom of your absence

And whistle to the sight of your figure

“damn”

Your mirror is brutally honest

It also has the humor of a dad

It helps you giggle in the morning, when your eyes are still puffy from the night before

And your legs long for the cold bedsheets

It stops you from walking back

“you are strong, you are beautiful, you’re a bad bitch”

Although you and your mirror fight a lot

Because of how harsh it sounds when it tells you the shirt you’re wearing makes you look like a five year old

Or how you should smile more often- it says after you finish doing your makeup

“ok can u smile now”

“wider”

“not that big but ok”

you still feel like it’s your main source of hype

Until one day

you realize that the you you’re most comfortable with doesn’t look like the “verifieds” you find on Instagram

so you stop looking at the mirror

you don’t even want to look at yourself anymore

not even picture yourself in darkness

you start looking for other sources of hype

You draw Venn diagrams in your head and the only similarity you have with those girls is your label

you are a girl, so are they

But what lies in contrast is the details of that label

“My hair is curly, theirs is long and straight

I have love handles, their waist is tiny

My face isn’t clear, theirs is..

they say they only drink water to keep it healthy, but so do I.

I also invest in over-priced skin care and find no results

So they must be created prettier”

Silence

That’s when your mirror stops whistling in boredom, but starts crying out your name

There’s a lot it wants to say to you

That mirror you hate standing in front of is the same mirror that’s proud to reflect an image so graceful as yours

Mirrors only show what’s on the outside

But your mirror wishes it shows what’s on the inside too

Mirror mirror on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all?

“You are so come back and listen to me”

A year passes by and you replace your mirror with a scale

Now that is self-destruction

The numbers are never enough

They’re never not enough

It’s all too depressing

And it’s so good at pitching negativity towards you

You don’t dodge that negativity

You take it in and let it destroy you even further

Your meals cut in half

You lose your glow

Your presence

Yourself

It’s all given away to the scale that asked you to lay your life as sacrifice

The king of annihilation

The ruler of the ruins

Your mirror never asked for much really

All it asked for was your presence

It longs for your smile

Your figure

Your cranky attitude

Now all it sees is an inch of dust

It plans a scheme to catch your attention

It leans forward and lays face down on the ground

It shatters

You hear it loud and clear

It’s your mirror screaming for you

You rush to it

Assemble the pieces

Hang it on the wall

And admire yourself in cracks again

The cracks that you thought you had are the beauty in you