"Her" by Stephaniya Elizabeth George

We returned to our house on a dreary Wednesday morning. Gossamer wings were on the porch, scattering now and then with the wind. The house hummed a low tune, a mournful lullaby, almost as if it remembered everything. And if it remembers, it must be grieving too.

I was a lost child. Invisible. Lonely. The Icarus who never touched the sun. I screamed at the world to carve a place for myself. I trashed rooms and spoke vicious words. My thoughts often morphed into a parasite that took my will to live. 

I hated mirrors. Every reflection is a childhood I grieve, where sadness and loss were masked as a sacrifice.

I wanted to be loved.

The mirrors haunted me at night. When I got too close, I saw a small child darting across, its laugh bouncing off the trashed room. I lingered closer only to see myself, smaller with unblinking eyes. Her shoulders weren’t curved inwards like I remembered. Her lips were soft, innocent to sharp words. I looked at her with both pity and longing.

The mornings would wander on, and when the sky bled orange, I would crawl back into the cursed room to find myself.  When daylight broke, I would find myself on the floor surrounded by dead moth wings.

Yesterday, she questioned me. I said this feeling I have is inexplicable. A dull ache where my heart should be. I have once again gone out of my way to feel pain and not this perpetual state of numbness that follows me.

Each night, the mirror beckoned me, and I saw my past displayed like a bruise on glass. The moth wings grew in number, and past and present moulded together. She smiled when I frowned, moved when I was still, her eyes were innocent while mine were clouded with anguish. I reach towards her to be swallowed whole. I feel the cold and dirty ghostly veil that separates us.

I drift from mirror to mirror. My wings aching for the light I’ll never have. Every mirror, every shard of glass, every polished surface lured me into hoping for a self I could never have. I stayed for a flicker, and my wings grew heavier, dulled by the pull of what I can never hold.

The floor below me is scattered with moth wings, pale and brittle.  Fragments of myself that I gave up for every longing, every desperate attempt to be better. The house hums a low tune with the wind. I drift through the hallways, today, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that. Every day, I keep looking for my lost self.

Stephaniya Elizabeth George is an 18-year-old university student who enjoys writing sad prose and poetry. She often explores themes of emotion and self-reflection in her work. Some of her poetry has been published in Zoetic Press. In her free time, she’s usually taking a walk to the beach or doing funky drawings.