Longing for a reflection that was once mine.

For everyone who has ever looked into a mirror, met a stranger and still stayed

Lost inside my own anguish,I stood before the mirror, wearing a face that no longer felt like mine.

Every fracture I had hidden from the world seemed to bloom beneath my skin.

I looked exhausted. The mirror looked exhausted too.

So I whispered,

"Tell me...who is broken here? Is it you,or is it me?"

The room answered first–Silence.

Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that mourns before anyone has died.

The mirror never spoke.It only held my gaze long enough for my own reflection to become a stranger.

My knees surrendered before my heart did. I crumbled onto the floor, gathering pieces of myself that refused to fit back together.

My soul was forgetting its own language. My breath had already begun packing its bags.

Time passed.... Maybe  I did.I still don't know.

The ticking of clock rang through my ears as if acknowledging the brutal similarity. The similarity about how I kept counting reasons to disappear while the clock counted seconds.

Somewhere between another heartbeat and another apology to myself, something stirred deep within me.

Not courage.

Not happiness.

Maybe Just a smallest refusal to vanish.

I rose.Slowly.

As though every bone had to relearn how to carry hope.

I looked into the mirror again.This time, the cracks were still there.

So were the dark circles,

the trembling hands,

the eyes that had spent years learning how not to cry.

But somewhere beneath all that ruin, there was the faintest flicker of hope.

Not enough to light the room. But enough to convince me that darkness hadn't engulfed me,yet.

And hence I think,Maybe one day I'll look into these same eyes and smile without wondering whether I deserve to.

Maybe one day my reflection won't feel like someone I'm trying to rescue.

Maybe one day I'll stop asking the mirror who the broken one is—because neither of us will remember the answer.

Until then, I'll keep standing before it,piece by piece,becoming someone who survived what almost convinced her she never would.