Brittle

I think I was 12 when I first began dissecting myself into the sections of the trifold mirror.

When I was younger, I would take the same mirror and bend it just so - just so I could see myself moving forever into the background - forever and ever - just more me’s cacading into eternity.

But that year, I didn’t want to see more of myself than I had to. My fascination with mirrors turned to fear. Where I had once marveled at infinite versions of myself, I now sought to see as little as possible.

My period had marked me a woman, my mother had said, but it felt more like a death sentence. The bell tolled for me over and over again - a woman - one step further into the future - and one step towards my grave.

To the gods above, I made deals. I bartered with my flesh to ensure I could live with myself and the figure that peered back out at me through the fissured glass.

“I’m okay with the way my stomach looks,” I mumbled to them, “But please, just make my legs less fat. If I had that, I would be happy.”

I didn’t know then what a fool’s game I was playing. Move the chess piece there and the king would just follow, right? If only I were a little thinner, I would be happy, yes?

As I grew older, so did my body, and not often in the way I had hoped. I was the sum of my parts and the sum was much too high. Ask my mother.

Her voice was so loud reading the numerals off the scale - the glowing red numbers - glowing red eyes. They accused me. Shamed me.

“You can get this weight off, hun,” She encouraged, her own cheeks sagging from years of fighting against gravity. “Just stop having those after-school snacks and maybe try working out a bit.”

She played the role of teammate while barreling over me like a defensive tackle. I didn’t wear a helmet so her words met little resistance. My bare skin bruised easily.

Reflective surfaces became my enemies as well. Opponents I did not want to meet in battle, but rather avoid at any cost.

Somehow, they always found me when I wasn’t prepared though. Waited for the breath to be out of my lungs before slamming into my chest to prevent another gulp of oxygen from being taken. They stole my air before I could even gasp.

Years to a mirror are nothing. They take the light and bend it back. But to my eyes, they were everything. Each one was a tally carved into my flesh.

I think I was 16 when I first began to feel proud of the hunger that clung to my stomach.

Before then, when I was hungry, I would eat. The simple expression of biological need. But hunger meant thinner. Skinnier. Less of me and more of me all at once.

The mirror and I were hesitant friends as I attempted to cut the pieces of me to fit into the mold that was set before me. The mold I had helped to carve.

Turn this way and suck in this much and I was perfect. Well, not perfect, but enough. Enough. Enough. Enough?

Ribs cut through skin to reveal the truth - I was hungry for so much more than food.

Mirrors, like scales, are limited in what they can measure. Limited in what they can see.

And hunger has a way of growing.

I was 25 when I became pregnant, a growing seed of life planted deep within my core. And I wanted nothing more than a healthy little thing.

So each month - and then each week - I measured the growth of it. Marveled at the speed at which my body morphed to meet the needs. And loved the way the mirror reflected each of those days. I didn’t shrink in front of my reflection, but rather flaunted myself.

But the voices of the past do not quietly subside. They are not easily buried beneath the echoes of time or slipped through the hush of therapy. They cut against the fragile edges of promises.

So though she came out beautiful, bawling, and perfect - my body did not. The mirror reclaimed its place as the villain, pressed against the wall, just beyond the nightlight. Once my skin only housed this singular soul.

My body, one that had literally just brought forth another into this world, had to return to that defensive posture. The mold still existed. Why did I no longer fit it?

Cut this and cut that and I could be again what I once was. What I wanted to be. What I needed to be.

I think I was 34 when I first heard her utter the words that had become like an internal beat within myself: “I don’t like the way I look.”

The mirror had returned - an unrelenting vendetta. The smooth glass bounced back the round, glowing lights of our bathroom, but something sinister glimmered just beneath the surface.

Those syllables were gutting.

And I saw the red, glowing lights of the scale and I heard the words of my mother and I bit back the urge to scream.

When I had the strength to look at my own reflection, I could see the tiny cuts from over the years. The bleeding bits of me that were shaved off by the rigid edges of the mirror’s hatred. My own hatred.

“Oh, my little monster. You are beautiful. All the time.” I encompassed her in my arms, swaddled all of her into myself.

My eyes closed tightly, willing all of my strength into the strong walls of her tiny heart. And then I looked once more at the mirror, the reflection of our squished, blushing faces.

“I love you,” I whispered into her hair.

A thin fracture bloomed in the top left corner of the mirror, barely spider-webing down.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was enough.

It was enough.