The Girl In The Mirror, Part One
I remember it like it was yesterday.
My 2nd grade teacher stood regally at the head of the class.
“Children shouldn’t look at themselves in mirrors
for too long or they might be considered vain.”
I didn’t know what vain was.
Maybe it was a disease you could catch by looking at mirrors.
For 8 years I never looked at myself in a mirror.
Now I look.
Standing in front of a full-length mirror, I look at myself.
I see shapes and curves and crevices and they don’t make sense to me.
Is this girl beautiful or ugly? Happy or sad?
What is behind the thick glasses and the muddy eyes?
What secrets does she hold?
What thoughts dance through her mind?
Who has the answers?
Who can say what is beautiful or ugly?
Who has the right to judge?
I wonder when she stopped being cute and loveable and became Hippo, the fat girl.
When did people stop smiling at her?
When did pity and disgust replace the friendliness in their eyes?
When did the kind words stop and the taunting remarks begin?
When did she become a thing instead of a person?
I study her features carefully and I wonder when she stopped smiling.
When did tears replace laughter?
When did she become so distrustful?
When did she stop sleeping?
When did she start worrying?
When did the nightmares start?
I wonder when people stopped seeing who she was inside.
When did they stop seeing her soul.
Why do they judge her by the size of her clothes?
When did they stop listening to her words and only saw how she looked?
I know this girl very well.
She is someone with big dreams, big ideas, and a big heart to go with her body.
She can see beauty in a dirty, drunken vagrant or a crushed flower,
but when asked to see the beauty in herself, she finds nothing.
She flinches at a person’s touch, at their words,
always looking for the hatred that surely lies behind it.
When someone says “I love you,” she becomes incredulous.
Who could love a thing like her?
She cries at night,
wondering where her dreams went and what lies ahead.
She withdraws into herself, not wanting to be hurt again.
She is too afraid to confide in someone lest her words get tossed back in her face.
She finds comfort in words, in books,
in the unconditional love of her mother and her pets.
She dreams, pretending she is beautiful.
Pretending someone likes her.
Yes I know her.
One day she’ll be loved.
One day someone will look at her soul instead of her body.
One day she won’t cry anymore.
One day she will smile again, and yes, one day she will laugh.
One day she won’t have to dream anymore; her dreams will be real.
One day she’ll be a person again. One day she’ll have friends.
One day she will be beautiful.
One day I will like the girl in the mirror.
One day.
Traci D Haley
