I’ve never been able to get used to a mirror. Some of my ex’s might scoff at that. But I’ve never been sure what I will see staring back at me.
This is what I look like?
I can never seem to remember. It’s a continual reacquaintance with a childhood friend, often older, sometimes younger, then I remember. Lately skinnier: the stress and Shigella induced dysentery from the trip to Peru have taken pounds off me, deepened my cheeks, thinned my face. It’s a fight to get it back. Now I feel, more than I have in a very long time, the urge to know the guy.
This time I won’t forget. I see you now.
But I do forget. Lately, the amnesia has morphed into something else entirely. Unlike before, I carry a mostly clear image in my head of who I will see, however when I actually look in the mirror, the dissolution begins. I can force it, strain, and bring it back into focus for a moment, before I seem to blur in front of myself. What does look back at me seems transient. Borrowed skin and bones. Most of the time I don’t panic. Sometimes I feel gratitude.
