She Looked in the Mirror

She looked in the mirror and saw nothing

but that same vague, shadowed outline

of a child, far away and veiled, barely perceptible,

an image reflected, as always, staring back

from a distance, some distant place she could

not go, wanting to climb inside the mirror and be safe.

Beating on the glass with naked palms, she shouted

her own name, over and over, “my own fucking

name,” pounding until the glass cracked, smashed, lines

racing out, three jagged lines crisscrossing, cutting herself,

painless after years of scars, sliced to convince

herself she could feel, feel pain, feel anything.

And the face smiled back, recognizing something there,

but the lonely smile quickly turned to tears, seeing

perhaps itself now in its own mirror, barely perceptible,

distant, what she would become, had become;

and she, shouting out her name, saw herself now in that

smiling, tearful face behind the cracked glass reflecting

the young girl she had once been, wanted to be once more.