My mind is like a recorder
One that keeps replaying
Every bad thought in order
Hope and optimism decaying.

My mind is like a giant maze
One with many turns and twists
Getting lost happens always
Does the way out really exists?

My mind is like a broken vinyl
One with scratches everywhere
Every damage seems so final
It looks impossible to repair.

My mind is like an eraser
One that makes me forget
Turning me into a disgracer
What's left is only regret.

Reflections
by Michael R. Burch

I am her mirror.
I say she is kind,
lovely, breathtaking.
She screams that I’m blind.

I show her her beauty,
her brilliance and compassion.
She refuses to believe me,
for that’s the latest fashion.

She storms and she rages;
she dissolves into tears
while envious Angels
are, by God, her only Peers.

Keywords/Tags: reflection, mirror, image, anorexia, bulimia, cutting, reflections, self-image, self-worth, self-criticism, self-shaming, mrbref

You’re pushed aside and crying on repeat
with hushed lies sliding on the beat
of your hearkened heart.
You deny and deny the need to eat
with the compulsion to not buy
into the greed disguised as art.
You condemn the hate but can’t see the fake
staring back when you gaze into the lake.

lately everything makes me wanna cry
so i'll fix it by going out and getting high
drive straight through 234 like russian roulette
to see if i'll get hit
i need another hit
and one turns into the whole bowl pack
i get dazzled in a daze of technicolor and emoticons
flying through my eyes like doves
i hope the black birds don't come
because i'm superstitious
throw salt over my shoulder
so satan doesn't come near
but what does that do when i have horns too
with a halo hanging on them like ring toss
i don't wanna do drugs anymore
i can hear my liver whimpering in the corner
begging to not get beat
but i use the belt again
and bash my head against the bathroom sink
sometimes i wish i died in my dad's bathroom
when i fainted from my prescription
funny how the legal drugs
almost always **** me
but i wake up alive after altering my mind
funny how peaceful heatstroke is:
losing sight
drifting sound
moving farther away like my ears are
detached from my head
last thing to dissipate is touch
until my fingertips turn blue
funny how burning off my fingerprints
wouldn't remove my identity
because i already wiped it out
with the ganj- and the grass
alternative medicine isn't healing
if it's being abused
and i'm so tired of feeling abused
even three years into the future
demons seeping through the cracks of my walls as i sleep
they haunt my dreams and flip them over into nightmares
but i will always go back to sleep
because i get to escape here but stay here
i want to astral project
and shoot my consciousness into the sky
instead of shooting myself in the head
i want to soar
and pick shooting stars out of the sky
and hold them in my hand with the same warmth as yours
i want to feel body heat on body heat
until i start to sweat and squirm
and you twitch in your sleep
i want to stare at space
instead of into it
when you can see the trauma
hollowing my eyes out
and caving my face in
from bashing it against the bathroom sink
and ripping my hair out
strand by strand
clump by clump
i would cut myself
but there's no spot on my body
concealable for when i feel better
i don't want to be reminded
every day of how i used to feel
because my mind already does that for me
i have good moments
so i tell myself after the bad passes, good will always come again

i am building a brick wall
in front of the mirror
because she's saying that when the bad passes, the good will come again
but what's the point when the bad comes back
an uninvolved father
stopping by every now and then
to use the tv
with the sound off and the static on
dissolving into the couch
like the lysergic odyssey melting on my tongue
absorbed by the grayscale of unhappiness
but i'll never say depression
because i'm scared of going back to therapy
backwards progress is not progress in my head, it's failure
maybe that's why i'm scared to go sober
because i'll always relapse

I gaze in the mirror
at the bumps and blemishes—
unsightly mistakes etched
on a canvas of skin
I pick at all the red spots
𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒈𝒐 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏
I pick at all the scabs
𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑
I pick at all the scars
𝒏𝒐𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕

I peel off all this rotting skin
only to find more layers—
of crippling fear
of clawing jealousy
of heavy shame
eating away at
what is underneath it all—
a woman who does not have
the courage to love herself

my body is not a line you can draw parallels to
i am unfamiliar, and distinct, all curved and cracked edges
i am not straight.

my body is not a line you can draw parallels to
but i'll still find a way to sketch our similarities, a comparison;
shirts off and tracing the patterns of conventional beauty
like a dot-to-dot that doesn't align with the mass of me,
all my dips and swells:
a child that can't colour inside the lines

sometimes the ***** of my nose makes me wonder
how often i must lie to myself,
and my reflection repeats "i'm a real boy"
and we repeat, and repeat, and repeat until the mirror breaks.

i am real.
breathing.
alive.

fingertips pressed to my cheeks, and then
squeezing at the flesh of my hips
i push and stretch and pinch
this way and that
messing, fiddling, curious and carping;
but when i'm done, i don't ... do anything
other than walk away

despite the critical caricature of my image
this is not a confession of self hatred, but in fact
the opposite is true.

this is self-acceptance.
this is love.
this is learning.
this is healing.

i didn't notice when i stopped trying to please my eyes
i just know that i did
and once i focused on me, not my mirror
i was happier with what i saw anyway

see, my scars are more visible in my eyes than on my skin, but
if you look closely enough
you can see the trajectory from despair to kindness
wounds dressed with watercolours, and smiles
and a promise that i'd give myself a second chance

and life got one too