reflections.

Sometimes she looks at her hands in the mirror and tries to figure out if they look any different backwards. The perceptions of mirrors only make things appear to be backwards, and if you don’t look carefully enough mirrors can trick you into thinking things that things that should look different are. You can look into a mirror, but you can’t really see yourself. All you’re seeing is light reflected off of a surface in such a way that an image is formed in your mind. So all of it, everything you can perceive, is all about surfaces and reflections. In her experience there are only two reflectors; there is one reflector that reflects everything upwards and outwards, towards anything that is light. The other reflects everything in such a way that all is in shadow. Sometimes the shadow is so subtle that it is like looking into a mirror, and she forgets it is changed, different. She forgets when she is seeing with this reflector. She forgets what it means to have surfaces and reflections. All is reflected, but it is so cleverly disguised that it looks like surfaces. The shadows cover her thoughts, so that she cannot remember what the other reflector makes things look like. And she has to look at something solid, so that she remember that this is a surface, this is not a reflection. The tricky part is trying to decide what is solid and what is reflected.

She looks at her hands as she talks to these people. Her eyes are on them, her voice is focused on them, but her thoughts are on her hands and anything solid she can think of. She is trying to convince herself that there is a point to being there, that she is having fun, that she should be having fun. The ‘should’ is what kills her, is what leaves her in pain when she thinks about it. ‘Shoulds’ always serve as reminders of what is worng and of what we have failed at. When we say ‘should’ we are either condemning a simple choice we have made or an entire pattern of thinking. ‘Coulds’ are supportive, they are reassuring, and they do not bring to mind our own shortcomings. These thoughts are like fish in a bold river, passing across her eyes as she tries to continue a conversation that has nothing to do with anything important. Anything important cannot be discussed in casual conversation with casual people, and neither can it be discussed with important people. Issues and thoughts that truly matter cannot be easily discussed at all, and she is smacked in the face with this fact every time someone contributes to the trivial talk. The blatant insult to intelligence that occurs with idle chatter is not lost on her; she feels it on behalf of all of them. They are too bored and wrapped up in their ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds’ to notice. She does not notice this. She, like them, is swimming in her own thoughts and cares nothing for these people, as they care nothing for her. They are like dreams upon waking, soon forgotten. And all she can think of is how she wishes she was somewhere else, anywhere else but this death of words and communication. Words are not often, emotion is not enough for her life, and she does not recognize that it is life that she is mourning, not death. Her mind is in mourning for the death of life, for the life that everyone should live but cannot, for the life that everyone could have lived, for the life that is missed while people are caught up in the ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds.’ She knows that words and emotions cannot describe life, they can only express it in some paltry sense.

Her reflectors are caught in the middle, between loathing and loving, and she is used to this balance but does not recognize it. No one sees how everyone is caught somewhere in this balance, and if they do recognize the balance it is a soon dissolved idea. Her thoughts turn now to love, considered a most important facet of life to many and an unknown source of happiness to most. One of the few things words often try to express but more often fail to, a thing that is supposed to be vital but that is not valued or even recognized when it is found. Loathing is much easier to find but harder to discern from other feelings. Complicated feelings turn to anger or hate without being properly diagnosed, which can be true of love too. She has many ideas on everything, but she is hopelessly uneducated in the ways of life and love. And in some ways the act of dreaming and thinking is more comforting that living, because in the moment when dreaming becomes reality, she will have lost the dream, and the reality will become the truth that cannot be undone. She knows she could do more, but isn’t sure if she should, so she remains caught in the middle, where apathy and neutrality lurk, waiting to pull her down past obvious emotions like anger to mind plagues like guilt.

The girl looks at her hands and thinks of all she should and could have done, all the things she should have said, and all the ways she could have done things differently. She could have different hands, she could have different thoughts, and she could be somewhere entirely elsewhere. She knows she should not dwell on these thoughts, but like the morbid fascination in fantasizing about one’s own death her mind goes on, to deeper thoughts she is not even aware of thinking. Her mind’s reflectors are fighting again, trying to see who will choose her outlook after this mind’s battle. Many many nights like these have been passed like this, and she wants to see an end to them. To have the reflector and the thoughts settled in her mind is what she thinks she wants, but deep down knows she will never get. Too many battles have come and gone with no winner decided that she has lost any real faith in having any decision made just by thinking. She knows she could talk to someone instead of always thinking around in circles again again. She knows too few things to satisfy her and too many to make her happy. Sometimes thinking is bad for the heart, and lets the mind believe it can do any real good in the body. Because the mind is easily influenced and changed, while the heart and body remain steadfast. They are too quick for the brain to keep up with, so it is always racing to keep up.

Her mind is like an ocean. She is no longer aware of what her mouth is distributing to the conversationalists around her, but she knows it is enough to satisfy their appetites for surfaces. Her reflections are strong, stronger than some of their minds, and she will never know how strong she really is. All she knows is that she could be stronger, and that strikes through her mind like an arrow. A chime in her brain that will not be silenced. It sounds, and she hears ‘I could be better.’ A second chime, ‘I should be better.’ A third chime threatens to penetrate her heart. ‘I can’t be better.’ Her heart’s consistent, truthful beat is swallowed up by the senseless bell in her head. She loses track of coherency and logical thought and her dark reflector throws everything into shadow. A string in her heart is cut every time she gets herself to believe this mantra, throwing her chords out of tune and destroying her nerve. She has done it to herself, and only her heart knows if it will ever heal. Scar tissue is slow to develop, and the wound remains. The mind could see what it is doing if it was clear, but the reflectors remain, and they cannot be ignored. Only the heart remains, until it is finally cut down by the brain, and her heart will be torn at until nothing is left. Unless she can find a way look at her hands and listen to what her heart tells her. Surfaces and reflections are tricky, and they always will be, and she has no help. The reflections remain reflections as she tries to discern what is real and what is really in her heart. She will survive as long as there is time and just one cell left alive in her heart. She has to. Who else could look at her hands and reflect like that.