"If I get what I want in my struggle for self, And my life is just great for today;I go to my mirror and look straight in my eyes, And see what that girl has to say."
I'm not fool enough to deny the fact that I've gotten everything I wanted. Retribution, absolution, confirmation, closure. I'm not fool enough to deny the fact that it all came at a very dear price. I'm not fool enough to mark myself clean, whole, fixed, important. I'm not fool enough to claim that I am faultless, superior, or even very kind. But when I look in the mirror, at least I know that I was honest...with myself, with them, with my emotions and my actions.
"For it isn't my lover, or children, or friends Whose approval I have to win;The person whose opinion I have to obtain, Is the girl staring back from within."
I am vulnerable and open. I lack confidence. My emotions gush out of me like blood from a severed limb, my actions are rash and uncalculated. I am fierce like a threatened animal, selfish like a teenager. I sleep when I can't face the music, I get lost in my vivid dreams. I write the things I cannot say, and say the things I cannot write. I drink myself silly and play make believe inside the body of my fearless, free, and angry evil twin. She has no self-control. I am not strong enough to argue with her.
"Those people may think I'm a pillar of strength,And imagine me lovely and wise,But the girl in the mirror says I'm useless and lost,If I can't look her straight in the eyes."
My greatest realizations, however, come from the mouths of others, people who see in me that which I cannot see, the good, the ugly, the downright wretched. Things within me which have been suppressed to the point of eternal denial, the ticking time bomb that is my troubled mind, the laughs that drown out my true voice, the half-truths that spill from my mouth like guilty confessions. Things within me that are both beautiful and terrible, cruel and kind, intimate and material. Things that when brought to my attention sting like razorburn with their honesty...words like shallow surface wounds, painful, tangible, but hardly worth a bandage.
"She is the one to please, nevermind the rest,For I'll be with her up 'till the end;And I've passed the most difficult, dangerous test,If the girl in the mirror is my friend."
I look at myself and see the fading rays of summer, the challenges I've faced, the price that I've paid in the name of love. I see Mike's defeated dark eyes, crystal clear and childlike in their unspoken apologies, and I see my own blue eyes glaring back with a deep, seething hurt disguised as a wall of boiling anger. I see Adam's liquid brown eyes heavy with regret for all of the things he can never give me, and my own eyes burning with tears as I understand for the first time the motive behind his desperate acts. I see Eric's placid green eyes pleading with me to take responsibility for the offenses I've committed, towards him and others who love me. I see my own eyes, blue pools of poetry, silently forgiving me for being unable to forgive myself.
"I might fool all the people I meet in my life;And never allow them to see my fear;But all I'll receive is more sorrow and strife,If I lie to the girl in the mirror."
And so the fairy tale is over, if it was ever a fairy tale to begin with. The willful princess wanders, stumbling drunk, dreamlike, and careless, through dance halls, and city parks, crowded bars and empty hallways looking for answers. She unites with her vagabond lover as their eyes lock across a crowded field, and her heart sinks with the realization that he didn't leave because he didn't love her, he left because their roles in life were just too different. She falls victim to a powerful man who uses his strength to snap her wilfullness and steal her dignity. As she stumbles to pick of the pieces, she realizes that the prince she thought she had found was merely a handsome placebo used to cure symptoms that were never there. She ultimately realizes that there is truth in everyone, in everything, in herself. She just had to open her eyes wide enough to see it. As she closes the door on all of this, on Mike, on Eric, on the men in her life who have loved her, used her, abused her, and taught her, she finally sees herself.
"So I go to my mirror every morning and night,I look in her eyes and feel whole. And she tells me the path I've chosen is right; For her eyes are the mirror of my soul."
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I don't usually buy into that inspirational, "girlfriend, you are beeeeeautiful!" bullcrap, but I used the poem "The Girl in the Mirror" to lead me. What I painted is somewhat dark, and too honest. Perhaps I'll delete it tommorrow, but tonight it feels good. So with that said... for those of us who are never satisfied, how much is it going to take until we can accept our limitations, take responsibility for our mistakes, and live with the lives we've made?
