The Man in the Mirror

                Sometimes the person we see in the mirror looks nothing like us…and in a lot of cases that person is more like us than the jaded and fake masks we wear. I wake up every morning and have to stare down that creature and more often than not it felt like I had become Dorian Gray in some twisted way. I’ve heard people say that a broken heart can only make you stronger, but that’s a lie it can do two things: actually make you stronger or turn you into a cynical outcast. The more you believe yourself to be that putrid reflection in the mirror, the more you begin to lose your grip on reality. It’s that strive to go back to normalcy and our complacent spots in life that often end up alienating us even further from that spot. I’m neither a saint nor a cynic; I’m simply an outcast trying to figure out which side I really am on. It’s a constant battle looking into the mirror, is that reflection just a manifestation of my sins and transgressions or is it what’s hiding behind my walls and masks? It often feels like the physical me isn’t the real me, but the man in the mirror is. The more I brood the more it seems that way and that leads me to be often immature in social situations, I want to distance myself from the portrait and burn it away forever. The flipside is that in smaller social situations I end up being that cynical person and judging others based off how I was in those same situations, even though I’m the worst possible comparison there is. I have asked myself recently to look in the mirror and really figure out who I am: saint or cynic? I stared into that mirror and clenched my fists, I clenched them so tight that my palms bled. It was in that pain that I made my decision and I pulled back a hand hitting that mirror as hard as I could. The shattered glass mixed with blood pattered against the ground as nothing was left but shattered pieces desperately clinging to the board. I am neither a saint nor a cynic, I am a person…a person riddled with regrets, pain, and torture, but also filled with love, compassion, and kindness. I walk the double edged sword between those worlds and tilt between them.  Whether that’s a good thing or not I’ve yet to decide, but one thing is for sure I am not the man in the mirror.