Never Told Me Narrative

The glass never spoke to me, but it told me who I was, and although it didn’t breathe, I could feel its presence. I’d known it for years; see it every morning before heading out the door, never looking too long, but always checking. As you get older the glances get longer, you stop and look closely at the illusionary face that’s supposed to be you, but begins to appear less and less like you every day. Then it starts to lie to you. You spend more time gazing at it. The more and more time I spent staring into it every day, the more I started to dread seeing it. What it saw me do, what I knew it saw me do, and its retelling of what I did the next time I glared into it became obscene to me. It was my own special purgatory, and I was tired of seeing my life repeated before me every day. So I decided to stop looking altogether. I wish I was exaggerating when I say this; I didn’t look in a mirror for a year and a half. Not once. I don’t know exactly what pulled the last straw for me, but I just stopped one morning. I

My collarbones protruded from my chest and my skin was ghostly pale. The only thing I didn’t recognize were my eyes. I had never really known what people meant when they said things like, “Oh, her eyes are so bright and pretty.” I knew now, because mine were the opposite. Yes, there was color, but they looked glazed over somehow, almost entirely unresponsive. I must’ve been so scared of my own face, because after that I slowly put more and more effort into making my existence better. To this day I still really don’t like mirrors; I can only handle ones that don’t show my whole body. But my fear of mirrors will never amount to the stark awakening of seeing myself as another person. Because it’s frightening to not know the person reflected on the glass. It’s always reassuring to check sometimes to make sure it’s still