I peel open sleepy lids and roll over,
As vision clears a thousand hours of 2 second dreams from my eyes my first thought; who are you?

I climb up from my bed, who’s soft embrace betrays the horrors that lay within, pull over my nightgown, thin. A silken touch of finery. A lie, a hope it would refine me.

Traipse, do I, through cold and lonely corridors, head tilted down, pushing through a gale of memories and half stories. Suddenly fascinated by my slippers.

I glance up briefly, look at the figure staring back at me. Sudden my mind a torrent, maelstrom, gyre. My soul a fire that burns a beacon to the figure, a funeral pyre of sorts.

I dip my head once more, a whisper;
‘Who are you?’

Familiarity brims at the corners of my mind, while tiny little insects chew away at the edges of my sanity. I dip my head again.

Vanity was never one of mine.

The door to the bathroom presents itself, a mahogany monolith, a sentinel of secrets guarding the smeared lines between fact and fiction.

‘You can do this’

A diction I utter, as I twist the **** and push to door.
Shatter the monolith.
The smeared lines become kaleidoscopes.
My vision blurs, my hands, they shake.
My slippers suddenly become riveting.
A trope, a day to day, nothing new.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

I step through the door, brace against the sink, raise my head and stare.
I stare at the eternal and never ending eyes of the stranger in front of me.

Their gaze burns through mine.

I steel myself, and look into my eyes.

‘Who am I?’

The glass shatters. The world falls away.

I knew this would happen.