Your Reflection

You stand facing yourself in a mirror, your image perfectly reflected back at you through the translucent frame. As you glance down at your arms you see you hand wrapped around your heart, holding the pumping organ away from your chest. Strained, your heart desperately beats despite the iron grip encircling it. Feeling it deep within your chest, you exist with a squeeze that won’t abate— not for breath or thoughts or words.

And suddenly you’re in the frame, no longer the hand that holds your heart, but a bystander. And you cry out: “there’s no one else here, put it down, can’t you see the only person hurting us is you?” But your arm won’t listen. Maybe it’s just as much a victim in all of this as you are.

And you hate yourself. For being too weak to let your heart go. For living behind a mirror, trapped in the walls you built for yourself. For being the only real thing standing in your way. The hating makes it worse, defeats the purpose of begging yourself the let go in the first place.