By Alexis Moore
Let’s take a moment to mourn ourselves. Mourn all that we weren’t, all that we were, all that we’ve been. All the dead dreams and fantasy moments that have come and long gone, whose breath we felt on the nape of our necks just moments ago. Say good bye, but maybe not good riddance.
Listen, Listen.
Under a tangle of confused thoughts and questions I take a moment to be quiet. I listen to myself. I look in the mirror.
Looking in the mirror is hard. Like really fucking hard. I wish I were someone else a lot. I wish I looked like someone else. Other people are my mirror. This can be dangerous and dumb for many reasons, the least of which is the way that people often just can’t see you. It is a failure that is accidental, on purpose, both, neither.
But you have to listen. Let’s be bold:
I grab the one in the mirror. I take her and shake her and hug her and love her. I drag her with me through the streets of New York and on marvelous and shitty adventures. I cry, she cries with me. I crush, and she falls too. I hope, one day, she will be someone who will lift me. She will hold me and encourage me to love, to pursue hope and to find my people. Those who see me and try to understand me and love me because of/in spite of this. I hope we can see the rolling hills, the sprawled out maps and toe the cliffs together. Radical realism, scary truth. Christmas lights and the dark and stormy, and still be okay.
When will I look at her?
It is tough. The looking is an act of mad bravery.
Is it fear? I think it’s fear. But I want to be allies. Not just allies, friends, family, greater than that. I need her on my side, but I can’t bear to see her. I can’t bear to stare her in her face because I am what? Ashamed? Unforgiving? Lost? Yes to one/all. Of all the times I wished to shed my skin, of all the palpitations of haunting, there is no greater fear than exposure. I have not been bare under my own two eyes, the ones that matter most, and I don’t know if such a thing is possible. Perhaps.
Let’s hope I can be brave.
*Photography Credit to Jen Hucko*
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