Behind the Mirror: The One I Am Not

Every morning, I stand before the mirror.

It greets me with a familiar face—eyes I’ve seen all my life, a mouth that speaks my words, a body shaped by years of choices and consequences.

But something feels wrong.

That reflection is not me.

The mirror shows a version of myself that the world expects: composed, confident, agreeable.

It hides the storms that rage within, the doubts that whisper in silence, the dreams I buried to fit in.

I smile at the reflection, but it never smiles back with truth.

It mimics me, but it does not know me.

I remember being a child, staring into the glass, wondering if the person on the other side could ever speak.

Now I wonder if he ever stopped speaking—and I simply stopped listening.

He is the one I am not.

He is the one I became to survive.

Society taught me how to dress him, how to speak through him, how to silence the voice that questioned everything.

I learned to nod when I disagreed, to laugh when I wanted to cry, to succeed when I longed to escape.

The mirror became my mask.

And I wore it well.

But tonight, I stood longer than usual.

I didn’t blink.

I didn’t adjust my collar or fix my hair.

I just stared.

And for the first time, I saw a crack.

Not in the glass—but in the illusion.

A flicker of something real.

A glimpse of the man I buried beneath expectations.

He didn’t look perfect.

He looked tired.

He looked honest.

He looked like me.

So I reached out—not to fix him, but to free him.

To tell him:

“I see you. I remember you. I am ready to be you.”

The mirror didn’t shatter.

It softened.

And in its silence, I found my voice.