A mirror is only as good as what you see on its surface
and when what you see isn’t what you want,
you start to wish the mirror was broken,
that someone bought it from a fun house,
that what you see isn’t really you.

You start to avoid the mirrors in your house,
pretending not to worry about how you look,
claiming that you’re not a vain person.
But the truth is, your vanity hides
beneath a layer of disgust
like a sheath of decaying sanity.

You want to curl up,
curl up until you disappear,
because maybe then people would look at you
the way you want them to,
they would look at you fondly,
missing your little quirks and they would say things like,
“They were so beautiful, it’s such a shame.”

But the thing is,
that’s not what happens.
That is not fondness,
it is pity. They feel bad for you,
but they feel no guilt
for how they ignored you.

Disappearing won’t make people look at you.
I thought like that once upon a time,
and sometimes the thoughts still creep in
like little worms trying to eat away at the confidence I have built.

But **** it,
I have worked too hard to go back now.
When I look in the mirror,
I no longer see that layer of disgust
that sheathed my decaying sanity.
Now I look in the mirror and I think,
“****, I look really good.”

I do it anytime I look in the mirror,
because now it’s true.
I believe every word of it,
I finally like what I see.
And if that makes me vain
then I will gladly accept the title.

I have wasted too much time avoiding my own reflection.
For once in my life, I’m finally happy with what I see.
And nobody, nobody, is ever going to take that away from me.

Look at yourself.
Embrace what you see, love it.
If you don’t like it, you can change it.
You can change the cut and color of your hair,
you can change the clothes you put on,
you can exercise and you can eat right,
you can even change the color of your eyes.
All I ask of you is that you don’t hurt yourself in order to change things.