Sometimes, I wonder why I even exist.
Sometimes, I don’t think I should.
Sometimes, I wonder if I’m a good person.
Sometimes, I don’t think I am.
☾
“If you didn’t matter to me, you’d be dead,” they say, looking into the mirror.
They clutch the sides of the counter like a lifeline, trembling, willing themself not to scream.
They want to break the mirror. They want to shatter it so that the person reflected back at them is a muddled mess, cracked and broken and bloodied, gaping and falling apart and missing pieces.
It hurts because they want to. It hurts because they want to rip themself apart, it hurts because―
It hurts because they want to escape. It hurts because they want themself to stay trapped.
Perhaps it hurts the most because they don’t know what they want.
And perhaps it hurts a little bit more because all they have ever wanted was to know who they are.
☾
“There is something wrong with me,” they say, plainly.
“There is nothing wrong with you,” their mother says, scolding.
“There is,” they insist, because the hurt that runs so deep burns hotter than they can continue to bear.
“There isn’t,” their dad interjects. “You are okay.”
“I’m not,” they say, pleadingly, because the lead in their heart weighs heavier than the weight of the world.
They aren’t, because there is something that bubbles and scorches beneath the surface, something unnamed. Something terrible, something horrid.
“Enough,” their father demands. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are happy.”
“I am happy,” they say quietly, because there is nothing else they can do, and because it is not quite a lie.
They are happy, but they are not. There is that something that twists and pokes and attacks and never leaves them longer than a moment of joy.
Joy is something that is fleeting.
It is the way it has to be.
They wonder if in another life, if that something would have gone away.
(In this life, it stays, and it will always stay. It will fester, and it will grow, because it knows nothing else.)
☾
They catch sight of themself in the bathroom mirror.
They are horrible. They are ugly. They are everything that they don’t want to be.
They want nothing more than to rid themself from this world.
Woman, the mirror whispers. Girl. Do not run from the truth.
Their reflection is haunting.
That something returns, and it hurts and it screams and it rings in their ears.
“You do not matter to me,” they hiss.
(Are they talking to the person reflected back at them, or are they talking to themself?)
You run, the reflection says, tauntingly.
They clench their fists, trembling.
“You hate me.”
Yes.
“I hate you too,” they snarl, turning and storming away.
(Perhaps the person reflected back at them and they themself are not so different.)
☾
“I want to go home,” they say, curling their knees up to their chest.
Their brother looks up, puzzled. “But you are home.”
Home is a place where they are supposed to feel safe, supposed to feel stable, supposed to feel happy.
Sometimes, they do not say, I am never completely home.
Where, then, could home be?
Home is comfort in the belief that everything will go black after death.
Home is closing their eyes to the comfort of sleep.
Home is nowhere and everywhere.
“Of course,” they say instead, a false smile on their face. “Of course.”
(They hope that one day, they will believe the lie.)
☾
“I’m tired,” they say.
What they do not say is, I’m tired of life. I’m tired because I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired because I feel like there’s something wrong with me and I feel like it’ll never go away. I’m tired because I’d rather be gone than be a bad person, and I’m terrified that I’m someone bad. I’m tired because I cannot bear my hateful thoughts any longer, I’m tired because I don’t want to blame anyone anymore, I’m tired because I simply want to give up.
Their sister, tapping on her device, doesn’t respond.
I wish I could blame you, they think bitterly. I wish you were able to talk back properly. I wish you were actually capable of being my older sister.
Their sister looks up and smiles. She calls them a name that rings in their ears. Their name, but not their name.
They smile back weakly, and respond accordingly.
I am a monster, they think, because I don’t think I can bear her burden anymore.
☾
Every week, they go to a building to pray to a god that surely doesn’t exist.
They sit through the fear, the fear that they will be discovered, be spat at, be sent to a hell that burns like the something in the back of their mind.
They sit and they sing through the fear. They sing and they listen and pretend to reflect.
Every week, the day before they go to the sacred building to pray, they go to a school to learn about a god that surely doesn’t exist.
They sit and listen and fight through their tears, watch the little droplets fall and splatter over their paper.
They listen to the hateful speech and listen to the arrogance of those who believe that everyone in the room agrees with them. They listen to those who preach that people like them are wrong and mentally ill and not right in the head.
They sit and listen because there is nothing really more that they can do.
If there is a god that exists, surely he would not be as cruel as those who preach his word.
☾
“I hate you,” they say.
This time, there is no alien reflection that laughs back.
This time, the person in the mirror, ugly, monstrous, horrible, looks a little too much like them.
“I hate you,” they say again, wondering if this time, it will sound any different.
(It doesn’t.)
☾
A few words on paper, and they are crying.
It is nothing beautiful, nothing romanticized. Fat, ugly tears burn trails down their cheeks. Their face is twisted into something laughably horrible.
It is vomit-inducing, but in the most human way possible.
Something floods through their body, but it is different from the something that twists and shreds and suffocates.
Relief, they think, shocks etched into their features.
They laugh, and some of the burden is relieved.
☾
“Do you know why I write?” they ask.
Their reflection stares back at them.
“I used to write because I could make a character the embodiment of myself, of all my twisted thoughts, of all my morbid emotions,” they say honestly. “I wanted to express my hatred in a way that nobody could tie back to me, because I never wanted to be seen as a bad person.”
Their reflection continues to stare back.
“But now, I write because I can. I write because it brings me a better understanding of myself. I write because I want to reach out to readers, and I hope that they find their true self in my works. I write because I want to see myself in my true works.”
They pause, taking a breath.
“I hate you. I hate myself. I have many emotions that I have yet to understand. I am struggling. I have a lot of messes to clean up. I have so much left to learn. But I am trying, and I think that is what matters the most.”
You’ve changed, the reflection whispers.
“I am myself,” they say fiercely. “And that is the only truth that I will always believe.”
They turn around.
Who are you? the reflection whispers. Who is yourself?
They stop, turning to face themself in the mirror.
For the first time, they think that they might see traces of themself in their reflection.
“Olive,” they say, with a smile on their face. “I am Olive, and I will never change for anyone else.”
