Mirrors
By Quinn Taylor
She looks in the mirror,
Hates what she sees.
It’s not right,
Nothing is.
Too scrawny,
Too hairy,
Too muscular,
Everything’s all lines and angles.
She looks in the mirror,
A different person looks back.
It’s not her,
It’s him.
He’s trim,
Masculine,
An athletic build,
But it’s not right.
Because he isn’t,
He isn’t… a he.
She is a SHE!
But no one sees it,
No one knows the storm inside,
“A handsome young man”
“Our little boy”
All her life that’s all she’s heard.
Playing dress up with her friends was fine,
She was just a kid after all,
She was still just their baby boy,
But what they didn’t realize,
What they DON’T realize,
Is that, that was her.
That IS her.
But not in their eyes, never.
In their eyes,
she will always be he,
They’ll never accept her,
They even told her that.
And boy, did it sting,
Those words cut her like a knife,
Trust me,
She knows from experience.
Late nights she stays up crying,
Never happy with herself,
Always doubting,
Nothing is right,
And she can’t fix it,
She can’t be herself,
Not anywhere.
Everywhere she goes,
They follow.
The effect of their words,
Like a shadow she can’t shake,
Too scared to tell anyone,
So she lives with the pain,
Of him. Of always being,
Him. Never her,
Always Jacob, never Quinn.
Each time it seems to cut deeper.
She’s tried to change,
Oh, believe me she has,
But every time that shadow pulls her back,
She’ll leave her shell,
Only to be slammed back in.
She’ll make progress,
Only to have it shattered.
But high noon is coming.
She's tired of him,
of seeing him,
of BEING him,
She looks,
One last time,
into the mirror,
She stares,
At last, she takes action
She winds up,
her fist flies forward,
it collides hard with the mirror,
there is blood,
the mirror shatters,
tears roll down her face,
but she did it,
she did SOMETHING.
Someday soon,
Their shadow will be gone,
High noon will come and go,
Then a new shadow will form,
HER shadow, no longer his,
No longer theirs.
She’ll finally be free,
And she’ll finally be herself.
