Mirror is Glass

She stands in front of me. She looks tired, sleepless in the exam season, her face full of shadows like spider webs. Her dark, raccoon-like eyes examine me closely like I’m a crime scene.

‘What are you staring at?’ she hisses at me but I can’t take my eyes off her as I stand there, staring, mesmerized.

‘You’re ugly,’ she says, finally and I lose my breath. I can’t say anything back, my tongue numb like I’ve eaten ice.

‘I said you’re ugly,’ she repeats, ‘ugly, worthless, a failure,’ she squeezes her fists, ‘nobody likes you.’

She cringes. Her face slowly grows red, then crimson, like she’s choking on her own words, about to lose conscience.

‘Everyone – I mean it – everyone,’ she screams and I worry she’s gonna wake up my family in the next room, a family that never wanted me, a family that never cared, ‘everyone would be better off without you, an anxiety-filled bag of trash!’

She starts crying and I raise my fist just about to hit her as I remember – the mirror o made of glass. If it breaks my fist will bleed again, like the last time.