The Other Face

Every morning, I wake to a familiar stranger.

In the mirror, they smile the right way,

adjust their posture, say the right words.

They look like someone worth knowing,

someone who has it all figured out.

I watch them move through the day,

performing small acts of normalcy:

replying, laughing, existing.

A simulation of life that almost feels real.

People say they envy me

the confidence, the ease,

the way I make everything look effortless.

They don’t see the static under my skin,

the tiny fractures I cover with light.

Sometimes I stare and the reflection flickers.

The glass bends, the image warps,

and I catch what’s beneath:

a shell wearing human skin,

eyes bright with absence.

It’s a kind of psychic dissonance,

living as two people at once,

the one they adore,

and the one who hides from social circumstance.

They all see the beautiful version,

the curated angles, the practiced calm.

But I see through a kaleidoscopic mirror,

fragments of who I might have been

if I had ever let myself be whole.

Some truths stay buried for safety.

Some selves never learn how to surface.

So I keep pretending,

keep playing the part,

until even the mirror forgets

which one of us is lost.