Dysmorphic Reflections

“The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own…

and I blamed myself for it.”

Then again, perhaps “blame” is too soft a term. I hate myself and who I see when I stand before the reflected depths of a shallow image. An image that was never good enough.

Why do I do this to myself? Stop and stare, with clothes on, without clothes on, at my worst, at, what I think is my “best” but who always shows up to prove me wrong? I take pictures from every angle. Modern technological advancements have only aided and abetted my struggle. A battle between what I see and how it makes me feel.

Why can I not just wear my skin as other people do? Why must I feel every lump and a disgruntled round of flesh stretched too far over unyielding years of lumpy struggles?

I can’t lose. A statement that would rouse pride in another condemns me to once again stand before its taunting reflection.

“This is not me!”

Yet who am I without it?

Others might try to contradict me against this mirage of unworthiness, but what do they know? They are free. They do not have to work as hard as I do just to maintain a crappy neutral. What is it to throw something on? To eat because you are hungry and stop because you are full. How do they lose themselves in someone or something without the nagging reminder of repercussions to come should they do just that and forget?

People roll their eyes at me and this thing standing before me. A rectangle of ache and suppression.

“I hate you.” I say with all the venom in the world and sheer despising penetrates my own slanted gaze. I want to raise my fists against it, but I know that if I do it will not be a release or unburdening. She will come back and until she does a thousand me’s will lay scattered and staring from the shards of new angles I never wanted to take into consideration.

No, hanging on the wall is where she belongs. It is the only containment and semblance of control I have in this. Even though its image haunts my every step, chases me, taunts me, and finds me in the most unexpected of places. A crosswalk puddle, a storefront, a pharmacy. I cannot escape myself, none of us can.

“Who am I, if not myself?”

I reach out to touch her. She reaches back. Oh, how I have let her down, but at least I was never counting on me. I live too physically in the world to be lost in delusion.

“What am I?”

Weight personified. The anchor that keeps me centered, grounded, and buried. I feel everything, but fear touch. I taste but do not swallow. Smell, but never allow it to penetrate desire. I stare, but cannot trust what I see. Listen, but no one knows what they are talking about. No one knows me because she is standing in the way.

I am the expert and the one who is lying. What can I trust if my not myself? This reflection is me, but it is not my truth.

“I must go harder, try harder, do more.”

More, harder, harder, more. My anthem. I almost have nothing left to give, but am running out the clock. Is that what I want?

“I want to love you!” I scream into her, keeping my eyes locked on hers. I do not want to chance seeing something in my reflection that proves her right.

“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing! You are nothing!”

Yet everything she needs to live. Everything that has allowed her to thrive. No day passes without the thought of what I should be, and the comparison to what I see, I always fall short. I’m to this and that, to be what I long for. Yet I will not stop trying. How can I give to one who takes so much? How can I still hope to best her when it always comes back to this?

Heart and mind in a power struggle against the time it takes to define and defend what matters most in your world.

I can’t let go. You complete me. You control me. You imprison as much as you set me free. The cage and the key. I could not contemplate life without your realization or else my destruction.

I do not want to die, but I cannot live like this. Looking like this. It defines me. It hurts me. It will not approve of me. I remain trapped in the unrepresented essence of my being and its physical repression.

I can not say I am alone, she is always there, in my ear and on my mind. I cannot escape this mirror’s shine.

The mask. The undresser. The freedom and its oppressor. You cannot exist without me, nor I her. Was I always this way or was it incurred? The sins of the father once incurred must be endured.

Mother before the mirror sighs and says she is fat, with a shrug. She acts like it is no big deal but you watch her grow more and more miserable each day until it is too late. Her marriage falls apart and leaves her with nothing.

Nothing…

My eyes begin to take the tour of my flesh.

Nothing...

I will not be left with nothing…

Look at how happy the other women are. They frolic and are beloved by all. They can be intelligent and sexy. A surprise.

I want to be a surprise.

What comes first, hate or love?

Once taught and ingrained, can it be solved?

Are we destined to repeat and sow the seeds of our repeated defeats once grown?

What is me vs what is you?

Is how we turn out authentic or imbued?

What I take on, is it not my choice?

My body, is it not an echo of my voice?

Judge not lest ye be judged

Once thought, can it be untaught?

Or are we to be the reflection of the love or hate we receive?

A youth who transmutes what she saw

Trapped forever in dysmorphia.