by Divya Iyer, III B.S.W
on the other side of the mirror lies the shape of my disappearance.
on the other side of the mirror lies all that i have lost.
bottles of nail varnish, thin long line of sturdy neck, jawbone
that glows in the light just right, wrists to be remembered;
on the other side of the mirror lies all things of the past.
tickets in jean pockets, hands on a railing, shrill laughter
and my ears grating, the music a little too loud and the jump scare
still ringing in my ears. on the other side of the mirror:
all the things that refuse to come home, no matter how loud their mothers call.
all the things that have no home to come to. all the things that came home
and destroyed their homes – left the streets forlorn and the villages
empty and drained, dripping all out. everybody sobs into their shirts.
on both sides of the mirror, there is misery. on every side that you take
there are casualties. broken glass. loss. on this side of the mirror, though,
i am a living, breathing thing. on the other side, i see
the ghosts of the woman i used to be. every single pretty trinket lost
to time and trauma and the world around me. on the other side of the mirror
lives a ghost. lives a haunting. on the other side of the mirror
lives the person i could’ve been, in a story in which
i finally get a happy ending. in a story with minimal loss.
perhaps they aren’t the same thing.