Reflected

Shelly Kahn

you look in the mirror and you see eyes that are looking back at you - that are looking at you because they are your eyes and you are the person in the mirror. you look in the mirror and you see a face, and you see a nose and a mouth and lips and the lips that you are looking at twist when you make a silly face at yourself because they are your lips and you are the person in the mirror. you lift up a hand and wiggle all the fingers, and the fingers you are looking at and the hand they are attached to wiggle at the same time, in the same way. you take the same hand and lightly gather the skin at your cheek, pinching it and pulling it away from the muscle and bone that give it and you and your reflection its shape. the skin at your cheek moves away, and you can feel it, and you can see the skin in the mirror but your reflection does not feel the skin pulling away. still, the skin moves because the hand moves and because it is your skin and your hand and you are the person in the mirror.

you can hear rain falling outside and you can see lightning when it flashes through the windows in your room and you can hear your sibling talking to their friends and you wonder who is really listening and who is seeing and who is hearing. your ear itches so you scratch it, and the person in the mirror scratches their ear too but not because it itched. you wonder if you are a brain in a body or a body with a brain or if you are really anything at all. you wonder how the skin and the eyes and the hands and the bones and the cheeks and the lips you see in the mirror are you, and who decided they were yours after all. but you move your hand back down and ignore the way it curls inwards. you look at the mirror and can’t see your curled fist in the reflection, and you wonder if it is a fist, and how do you know that. you look down and see a hand curled into a fist. did it exist before you checked for it? are you and the person in the mirror the same if one had a fist and one did not? who are you, really.

you close your eyes for a moment and the person in the mirror disappears, because you can’t see them anymore. you wonder if you’ve also disappeared. you are the person you see in the mirror and your reflection is you but they are gone and you are not. at least, you think so.

you open your eyes again and the person in the mirror has opened them too, and you look in the mirror and you see tears dragging down their cheeks, eyes wet with salted liquid, chest rising and falling a little faster than you are breathing. you can’t possibly be the person in the mirror. you’re pretty sure you’d know it if you were crying.

you turn and walk away.

Bella Stevens