Mirror, Mirror

I wake up, like I do everyday. I hit the alarm clock. I drag myself out of my poor excuse for a bed. I try to breathe in fresh air among the stink of my room. Just like I do everyday. I take the few dreary steps to the bathroom, fumbling the door knob and falling in. Every single day. I use the toilet, paying no attention to my aim. Then I stumble towards the sink to shave.
I take as much care as possible not to look in the mirror. Taking as much time as possible with the foam, then searching in every possible place for the razors, even though I know were they are. With no excuses left, I look up into the mirror.
And all I see are my two eyes staring back at me, with burning hatred.
I did this yesterday. And the day before. And I’ll be doing it for plenty of days to come.

I walk along to work, stepping through the puddles and refusing to look into their ghostly reflections. I don’t look at any glass, or anything that can show me my own eyes. I’m in my own world, with my mind yelling its old abuse at me, mixing in with the loud music coming from my headphones. The voice in my head that used to tell me it would be ok, and would get me through the hard times. The voice that finally gave up on me, for everything I’d done to it over the years, the chances I never took, The decisions I never made, and the girl I lost.
The voice, the mind, which hated me.
So I just keep on walking, with nothing driving me, on a lazy soulless autopilot, not even able to hope it will get better because the part of me that gives me hope is against me.
And so my days go on.

I wake up feeling too hot, and with horrible sweat dripping from me. The sheets are stuck to me, and I wriggle around helplessly, stuck in my cocoon. I eventually fall out of my bed, and as I hit the floor, sound seems to shatter in my head. I lay there shivering as the room twirls around me, my head thumping painfully to the tune of my hearts increasingly quickened beat. Eventually I feel the strength begin to come back to me, and I pull myself up, resisting the bile the rises in my throat. I head towards the dreaded bathroom, every step takes an eternity, and my body gets heavier and heavier, willing me to hit the ground. I finally reach it, my lungs feeling like their going to burst… and then something makes me look round. Into the mirror.
And I see me. But it’s not me. It’s my mind. Standing there clean cut and shaved, looking as happy as I always wanted to be. She suddenly appears behind him, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. I feel the same burning deep in the pit of my heart that I get whenever I see her. Then she walks away, and the last little flame of happiness, of hope, of good in me, flickers out. My mind grins evilly at me through the mirror, using my face, my lips to sneer. Then he spits, and I collapse.

The freezing cold washes over my body as I wake, making me cry out, and taste the blood in my mouth. I try to get up, but pain shudders through me, and I realise the thumping in my head and the dried blood the covers my face and the floor. There’s a bump on my head, swollen hugely, and I try to touch it through my matted, stained hair, but anytime my hand gets near it, another jolt of pain bursts through my body.
So this is what my mind has done to me. It’s had enough and it now it wants me dead.
This is stupid. Am I going insane? My own mind can’t want to kill me. That doesn’t make sense.
It would have good reason to you useless little swine.
But it’s my mind. That’s a part of me, if I die, it dies.
Well maybe it just doesn’t see the point in living any more. What’s your point in living any more? What gets you up each day?
Shut up.
What keeps you going? When was the last time you had fun? When was the last time you smiled?
Stop it.
Do you have any goals? Don’t you want anything more? Or do you still miss her? Oh yes, that’s it alright. The girl who you loved so much. The girl who you never even told how you felt, how we felt! Can you blame me for wanting it to end? It’s time to give up!
Stop…
Tears fall from my face, mixing with the blood on the floor. So it’s come to this. My life has gotten so bad that my mind wants me to finish it up. I pull myself to my feet, and look again into the mirror. Is it me staring back, or my mind? I can’t even tell anymore. I look straight at his eyes, or my eyes, with a new understanding.
The mirror shows me her beautiful face one last time.
Then I smash my face into my minds, shattering the hated thing, and turning everything to red. Then I keep on smashing until it all stops finally.
No more days for me to endure, no more pain for my mind to take.
No more mirror.