Mirror

Mirror Image
(Written when depression ate its way to my soul)

I’m aching. I pity myself for being under everything. Why do I have to be someone who blends on the background? Someone who listens, and listens forever… I listen to your secrets, but you don’t listen to mine. I have a heart too, and it’s as sensitive as anyone else’s.

I pity myself for being the underdog all the time. I pity myself for being someone who you tell stories too. You never heard my stories back – it’s always you or nothing. So I kept my mouth shut. I hope you realize that I have my own stories too.

I pity myself for not being loved. I looked at the family portrait, and I never saw a family. I looked at the tiny figure with curly hair. He was small, and his eyes were looking distant. I pitied him, for being around a bunch of people who cared nothing about him. I looked up at the blue sky, asked God why this is happening to me. But I realized that my eyes have betrayed me. The sky is not blue, it’s gray. And it’s raining…

So it’s me against the world, as always, and I’m already sick of it. I’m already numb. I looked at my hands and asked myself when they last touched another hand. I pity myself for not having a cuddle when my heart is so aching; when I fall down and I can’t find the way up. I pity myself for being neglected, for trying to fit in, for always being ignored.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were the brownest eyes there could ever be. I tried to smile, but my eyes did the opposite way. I love my eyes, but it’s always me who loves my self. No one else does.

I listen to everything you say, but whenever I speak of my life, you turn away. I know your secrets, you voluntarily told them, but you didn’t even ask for mine. I appreciate everyone, to make them feel better, but I don’t get them appreciating me back. I always have to be supportive, and that’s it. I never felt any support, and now, I’m hanging by a thread.

I cry to myself, cry until my pillows are wet. But I cried only to myself, because only myself loves me. I never dared cry in front anybody again – I would just look like a soft heart. So I cry to myself. I pat my back, and tell myself that I can do it; I can live life because I’m a strong person. I tell myself that tomorrow is nothing compared to what I have been through. I hug myself because it’s the only kind of affection that I can afford. I rely on myself; depend on my own shoulders, because if I don’t love myself, no one will love me. And I will be left in the dark. I tell myself that I’m a special person. I do to myself what others failed to do…

But it’s an artificial process, and I get artificial happiness from it. At first it was good, it was relieving. I was able to numb the pain that I feel inside. But now, I’m tired of this. I’m tired of everything that is not real…

I smiled at my mirror image… the perfect smile. A camera would have made a lot of money reproducing the smirk that took me a long time to practice.

I smile; I stand tall and hold my chin high. I tried to look strong, because everybody wanted to see the strong me and no one else. But behind my mask, I am shrinking. I am limping. I am sick. I looked at myself at the mirror, looked at my body, and I noticed that I was frail, that I could break any second. Behind my mask lie the deepest of my sorrows – my pains, my wounded soul, and my beaten esteem. And yet there is no one who sees them.

I feel cold. I looked at my skin, touched it, caressed it, and tried to stop the throbbing. But the most painful bruises are underneath my skin; they’re deep inside the hollows of my heart. And they never healed.

I wish to have someone who I can lean to, someone who would appreciate the dumbest things that I do. What joy would it be to have someone to pat me at the back, and tell me that I can do it, that I can live until tomorrow, that I can be more than what people had expected me to be. I need someone who will cuddle me when I feel hollow, someone who will comfort me when my tears are flowing, and someone who I can be with so that I’m no longer alone in facing the world.

And in just the blink of my eyes, I realized I was dreaming. I still can’t accept that the luxury of having a best friend is as farfetched as having a family of my own. I’ve lost mine, and there’s nothing more painful.

I looked at my arms, and asked myself when they were last hugged by someone.

…

I feel alone. How could life be crueler?

So I cry… Cry my eyes out. I intoxicate myself with the addictive relief found in crying. I cry like a child, for I’ve never grown anyways. A child left outside, at the cold darkness, under the streetlamp that flickered every now and then. He was hugging his knees to his chest, to keep the warmth that was a remnant of the happy world that he once lived. Now he’s alone, and he is dying because of the cold…

The brownest eyes there could ever be closed, and a bud of tear rolled down his cheek.