The Cracked Mirror of Me

There’s a mirror in my room

with a hairline crack across the center.

It didn’t break from violence—

just time.

Or maybe from holding too many versions

of me.

Some days, it shows the child—

wide-eyed, dreaming,

scribbling galaxies in notebooks

no one would read.

Other days, it’s the stranger—

tired eyes,

jaw set with the weight

of words I never spoke aloud.

When I stand in front of it,

the fracture splits my face cleanly—

a perfect metaphor.

Half of me reaching,

half of me retreating.

I am whole,

but never at once.

I tried once to replace it.

Bought a new one,

sleek, modern,

clean.

But it never spoke to me the same way.

There’s honesty

in the broken things.

A kind of mercy

in reflections that don’t lie.

This cracked mirror knows

the nights I wept at 3 a.m.,

mouthing apologies

to the ghost in my reflection.

It held me

when no one else did.

A silent witness

to every unraveling.

Now, I trace the crack

like a map—

a journey from who I was

to who I became

because of the break.

I don’t hide from it anymore.

I dress in the light

that bends through the fault line.

Sometimes,

when the morning sun hits just right,

the split gleams like a scar

that’s finally stopped hurting.

Not beautiful,

but brave.

Not perfect,

but mine.

And in that broken glass,

I finally see

not who I was supposed to be,

but who I survived to become.