“How can you stand it?” I whisper to my mirror. Sullen by my own rage, angry at my sorrow. I want to feel happy again. I want to feel alive. I want to feel love without it eating me up inside. I bow my head to my mirror, my legs quaking with the weight of everything.

“How can you stand it?” My mirror repeats completely monotone.

I feel myself sink to the ground, “I cannot stand. That’s the issue. I cannot stand the doubts and worries that plague my mind like rats with diseases. I cannot stand to feel this way any longer. What can I do, me in the mirror? What can I do to breathe again?”

Again it echoes, in reality or in illusion I can’t tell, “It’s okay to suffocate as you survive. It’s alright to feel the sorrows and the anger that tries to devour you whole. You’re allowed to feel this pain. You have lost much, but not gained enough. You feel empty because you won’t let anything fill the hole. You are worthless so only you can fix it.”

I lift my head, tears in my eyes, and I speak to the mirror as they stream down my face, “Whatever fills the hole in my heart just leaves after it feels cemented. It makes my system crumble. Then you say I’m worth nothing, but I have to heal myself even when I don’t care enough to do anything? What am I to do me in the mirror? When I can’t take it anymore?”

My mirror begins speaking numbly then intensifies “You could let them go. Create your own cement, instead of needing to fill it with lost desire. No one has ever filled that hole but you. You think it was held together by love? For others? NO! You have jealousy and anger for those who have been fixed. You want someone who needs you. Depends on you. You think that it’ll take away your pain. You feel like a loser. Anyone who falls for you, falls deeper into themselves. How do you feel knowing you are a reason people break?”

Shaking with anger I speak with strength, “Mirror I never asked. I didn’t want to hear my life story thrown at my face. I do need people, but I mainly want them to need me back. I just want someone to kiss the top of my hand and say ‘I love you’ without them wanting everything from me. I want to say ‘I do’ and marry someone who holds me as tightly as I hold them. Who looks at me like I’m their everything. Mirror you don’t know me at all. You are what plagues me yet I ask you this, why oh why do the wrong people say ‘I love you’? Why oh why do they say they need me and vanish? Mirror why can’t you love me so I can love myself?”

The mirror replies, in a dully angry tone, “Why do you call me mirror if I am you. If I am the reflection of everything you hate about yourself why do you talk to me? Why do you ask me why the wrong people love us when you and I believe the same on that subject? Why do you want me to love something that cannot love even the good parts of themselves? I am you but a reflection. Why do you make my opinion everything?”

Back to tears, I speak as clearly as I can, “Because you are all I really know. I look at everyone around me and I see broken shards everywhere. Being around them is like walking through glass. I don’t know their reflections because they shattered even the best parts of themselves just to try and run from it. You have a crack because I am cracking. I have never broken you because I need poison to survive. I still need the antidote and the only way is with the poison. Mirror, when will you make me happy instead of miserable? When will you make me whole again instead of hiding within glass walls? When will you fix me?”

Sharply my reflection hits me with her words, “You have such high expectations for your captor. I am what you love to call the female side of yourself, even when you know we are both the same. You call your female side ‘venomous’ because it brings you more dysphoria so you won’t hesitate to make large ripples in your body. You don’t want that fear, and by taking body parts away you will get rid of me. That is your belief. But I am you, you change to who you are but I am you. You will never get rid of me. I’ll change forms again and again and again. When will you accept me?”

Feeling lost and broken I say the most little I have through the whole conversation. “Mirror, I don’t know. I am at a loss for words, and we are one but also separate. I don’t understand…”

Screaming with a pathetic tone my reflection shouts, “And why would you? You have so much to say until I speak up and you become silent. You are meant to fix us. Not me. I am here to try and force you into submission, she laughs coldly, “Maybe that's why you call me your female side. You want a Vixen in this story. A female fox to take the audience's breath away. How could you? How could you, use me, as the bad guy? You are the one making decisions. You are the one using me as your voice. How could you… Blame me… For things. you. Do?”