Staring Back at Me

As I stand before the mirror, I stare aimlessly at myself. 

I stare at the way my skin molds into the unique shape of my bones, and folds around the tips of my eye lids. 

I take a mental image of myself and begin to strip myself down. 

I’m stripping down to the roots of my person, the roots that built my life and molded my future. 

I strip down to the bare bones that allow my person to live and breathe the air that holds history of what used to be. 

I prepare for the mirror to crack before me. To come crumbling down like the walls ofJericho. 

The reflection of my body that I learn to love then begin to hate looking back at me. 

My mental image brings my person to ash. 

Ash that can blow away in the wind and disappear so solemnly. 

To the mirror I tell myself, 

I can be a Phoenix that rises from the ashes. I can come again to my whole person and be the one I was meant to be, 

Instead of cracking at the hands of love.