The Monster and the Girl

I look in the mirror, and a monster looks back at me.

Her smile is jagged, uneven, a collection of sharpened teeth meant for breaking, for tearing. Her tongue slides over them slowly, deliberately. Not to clean them, not to taste. But to remember.

She is something primal, something raw.

She was made for destruction.

Built from shadows, raised on silence, the vessel of fury and ruin.

Her eyes, pitch-black voids where humanity should be, follow my every move. I lift a hand, and she does the same. I clench my fingers, and her claws click together like knives being sharpened.

She is me. And she isn’t.

The monster doesn’t speak. But I hear her anyway.

I hear her in every clenched jaw, in every whispered insult thrown my way, in the voices of people who should have protected me. I hear her in the echo of slammed doors, in the weight of hands that left invisible bruises.

She tilts her head, watching, waiting.

Her horns curve slightly backward, symbols of defiance carved into bone. Her wings, dark and tattered, stretch, aching to take flight.

She has never feared pain.

Pain made her.

Pain sustains her.

She is the product of every betrayal, every moment of helplessness, every time she swallowed her words because speaking only made things worse. She is everything I held back, everything I never let myself feel.

And she is hungry.

Not for food. Not for vengeance.

For me.

For control.

For the permission to take over completely.

Would it be so bad, I wonder, to let her?

To stop caring? To stop hurting?

Wouldn’t it be easier to let her be the one people see, instead of pretending I am something softer, something more digestible?

She presses a clawed hand to the glass, and I almost—almost—press mine back

Then I

And she

The Other Reflection

The monster shifts slightly, her gaze flickering to the girl who now stand

She wears boyish clothes, oversized and stained with dirt. Her sneakers are scuffed from climbing too many trees, from running too fast, from racing against a world that never seemed to understand her.

Her eyes are bright, reflecting a thousand stories at once, stories she read, stories she dreamed, stories she planned to write one day.

She doesn’t fight with fists. She doesn’t bite back.

She is brave because she dares to believe.

She believes in herself.

And I—I

I used to think she could be anything. A writer, a racer, a detective, a dragon-slayer.

I used to think she would grow into something wonderful.

But I let the monster take that from her.

Or maybe she had been the first to leave.

The girl looks at me now, and she doesn’t speak.

But she doesn’t have to.

I remember her voice. I remember the way she used to tell stories to anyone who would listen—stuffed animals, the wind, the pages of notebooks filled with messy handwriting. I remember the way she used to stand in front of a mirror and pretend she was someone important, someone powerful, someone who could change the world.

I remember her laughter, light and warm, filling the spaces the monster now occupies.

The monster grins.

The girl smiles.

And I am standing between them.

The Choice

I feel the weight of them both.

The past. The present.

The girl and the monster.

Both are real. Both are me.

I was never just one or the other.

I was never just sharp edges and battle scars, never just the product of pain and fear.

But I was never just softness and dreams, either.

I was made from both.

I am made from both.

The girl became the monster to survive.

But maybe—just maybe—the monster can become the girl again.

Maybe she doesn’t have to bite to be strong.

Maybe she doesn’t have to burn everything down just to prove she exists.

Maybe there is another way.

My wings fold inward.

My horns recede.

The monster’s sharp teeth dull, just slightly.

She isn’t gone.

She never will be.

But she doesn’t have to win.

The little girl steps forward, pressing her small hand against the glass.

I breathe.

And I press mine over hers.

What I See Now

A storyteller.

A fighter, but not just with fists.

A dreamer who has been burned, but still dares to hope.

A girl who remembers. A monster who learned.

A heart full of words.

A heart full of light.

I look in the mirror.

And this time, I see me