The Stranger in the Mirror

It begins the second I plaster on her lips.

I find comfort in this stranger's smile as my own lips mold to the forming crescent.

Together, intertwining, my words shift into seductive mirages,

lies glistening among the shifting sands,

suffocating in the heat of the moment.

I hate what you've made me become.

I don't know the monster in the mirror, but she looks just like me.

Could it be that I've finally become what I've tried to avoid?

I hate what you've made me become.

Say it again.

I hate what you've made me become.

Yet the more I stare, the more I like what I see.

Just smile, nobody will know.

I’m a mannequin, an unrehearsed silhouette; dancing, chasing shadows.

Shadows like statues, casting ghost towns, walking dead.

The silence fuels my anxiety as it peaks, erupting bile from my churning stomach.

I’m reassured everything is all right, but before I leave, the reflection in the mirror screams at me, the stranger smiling back.