Look yourself in the eye

Have you ever done it? Just stand in front of the mirror for a second and look yourself directly in the eye? Allow yourself to see into what they say? I have. And it’s terrifying. And it’s beautiful. Because I see what I long for and how that is good. But I see the indifference of how I get that, shaped by years of hurt and failure and the frustration of the present: having it right in front of me with no way to attain it. Ever. So I look away. Focus on everything else that is there other than the desperate truth staring right back at me with disdain, malice, and determination. And I plead that it doesn’t have to be. But they stare straight through me and say that it is. It has to be.