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Scout on Maturity/Broken Glass

 

On the other side of the glass, I see the perfect version of myself. She walks with a skip in her step, and nothing about herself keeps her up at night or down in the morning. Everyone she knows loves her, and she finds a way to love them back. She has everything, she is everything, and her confidence is unwavering. The days behind the glass are long because they’re spent clawing at myself until I bleed. Why can’t you feel like them, love them like them, be loved like them? I hate when my reflection is too clear, when those eyes look as if they’ve rejected the idea of happiness. The glass breaks. At the shift of my image, I get angry with myself. You, in all your light and life and experience, sit here digging holes through yourself because you don’t fit a perfect mold? You sit here hating the color of your skin, your eyes, your hair, your body, your face, when you have everything to be grateful for?

The wall shatters onto me, destroying the person that I ruthlessly despised, and gives me real wounds to hate. Now, I wish I had what I lost. The grounds that I stand on feel golden when compared to the rumbling stones halfway across the planet. Through my phone, I feel their pain and feed my guilt. Is this who I have become, a shadow of self-loathing so distant from real problems? In my dreams, they tell me not to forget them. They tell me that even though I ignore the news of their death and try to erase my responsibility, it will stay there forever. There is no more glass, and the two versions of myself become three. The present chases the ignorant bliss of the past, and the deluded impact of the future. All of them are equally flawed.

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