Face in the Mirror

You know what the worst part of remembering your face was?

The way it stared back at me from the mirror, every goddamn minute of every goddamn day. At the beginning I cried. I thought of covering them all up. Painting every mirror in my house black. I imagined taking them off the walls and arranging them into the booth of my car. Driving them to the ocean, far enough to have the very tips of the pines disappear in the rear-view mirror. I would haul them out and huff warm puffs of effort into the icy salt air. When I dumped them off the cliffs you would stare back: haunting caramel apple eyes, vicious and mocking as ever before. 

In the end I trashed them. Picked a random stone out of the garden path and hurled it at every single reflective surface in the house. For a few moments, watching the tiny shimmering pieces fall to the ground, it even seemed to help. 

Jesus Christ, it was beautiful. Iridescent like the first snow, peppering the ground with flashing tears. For the first time since you were gone I saw my own face in those pieces, shatter but true. I got old. I got sad. Mostly I got scared. 

But for that short while I could breathe.

Fragment, October 2020