PUNK PROSE: The Girl in the Mirror by Anonymous

I think to myself,  

“I know how to make my eyes sad, brown, and heartfelt, with longing.”  

I look in the mirror. I think about what got me here, in the bathroom of a grand ballroom in a camp made by some rich Orthodox Rabbi from Lakewood, NJ. How did I get inside the bathroom and away from the Passover Seder? Why am I celebrating Passover with a bunch of acquaintances of mine from some religious Jewish camp I attended over the summer? Right.  

Drunk, sad, and lonely, I sat at Passover Seder in a camp in upstate New York and I did not belong there -- not at the Passover seder, not here in this world. Instead of the Hebrews who found their faith, their G-D, and home, I was like Joseph, who was thrown into a well by his brothers and sold off into slavery. Oh, how much I wanted to leave and run away from everything!  

Never did I think I was the one who abandoned anyone. But, I did! I never ran away. I just listened to the girl in the mirror and believed that I was not worth a goddamn thing. So, I shut everyone out. I abandoned everyone first. I stopped talking and started drinking. I let myself be swayed by insults hurled while staring at the girl in the mirror.  

The girl in the mirror is one lucky person. She gets to stay in the mirror avoid her family, friends, acquaintances, Jewish magistrates, and more. The girl in the mirror is immune to all the insults I threw at myself while looking at the mirror. The girl in the mirror doesn’t get hurt. I get hurt while the girl in the mirror gets to hide. And, anytime I look into a reflective surface, I see the girl in the mirror and think:  

Am I good enough?  

Am I worth the trouble? 

Does my family love me? 

Does my family want me?  

If I disappeared, would anyone even notice?   

Would anyone care to notice that I am gone?   

Barney Stinson was right. The most awesome person who lives is the person in the mirror because the person in the mirror gets to evade all this self-doubt and hatred about themselves. But, still, besides all the hatred and self-doubt, I would not want to change places with the girl in the mirror.  

I’ll live with my self-doubt until I can find a way to turn my self-doubt into self-love, self-worth, and an all-compassing self-awareness.  

It might be better to be a whole person out in the world with love and hatred than to live half a life as a reflection of your worst qualities. 

I wouldn’t want to be the girl in the mirror any more than I would want to be a person who thinks badly of herself and finds solace in a bottle of Bartenura.  


--Rebecca Blyakher

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EDITOR'S NOTE: Something Old, Something New (aka WE'RE OPEN FOR REVIEW REQUESTS)

Hey, pals!  Due to an incredible influx of acceptances (we're stacked for pubs until AUGUST), we had to temporarily shut our doors.  I am delighted to announce we are again  OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS !  We've updated our guidelines; please read thoroughly before sending your awesome words/art/whatever.  AND!!!!  I am VERY excited to announce a new branch of the magazine!  For the first time, Punk Monk is open to review requests!  We will be reviewing books, collections, novellas, chapbooks, and microchaps. (Fiction, poetry, non-fiction, art, hybrid, ANYTHING accepted.) Our aim is to publish 1-4 reviews a month.   All reviews will be written by me, C.E. Hoffman .  This has been a long time coming, inspired by my personal frustrations seeking cool alt lit spaces that accept ARCs for review.  Many mags accept pre-written reviews, but won't review works in-house. This creates an unfortunate barrier for authors trying to promote their work....
Read more

If I Had A Son, I Would Teach Him About Evolution

I bled through the crotch of my pants and the Wonder Woman underwear I bought two and a half years ago on sale at Target while eating chocolate chip cookies in my bed. I put my hand between my thighs to wipe away the blood and realized, that God had once again decided to not put the embryo of Jesus Junior in my womb, leaving me free to continue reading blog posts tagged atheism. --Em Ramser
Read more

PUNK PROSE: Flick the Clipper, Write for Ten, Eat Some Doritos, Fall Asleep and Dream of a Nicer Time by Lacey Cohen

  i like to say i’m not a poet and i still don’t think i am but it’s not because i don’t like poetry (which i still mostly don’t) but more likely because i’m afraid my words won’t be as good as they are when i write other things because when you write poetry every single word matters but when you write a story or a letter you’re able to think softer and hide behind a scene or a fake character that you say isn’t yourself but usually it is and you think the reader doesn’t know that so it’s less scary than writing ambiguous poetry i get some of my best ideas when i’m high and i can never write when i’m high because i can’t articulate the idea as well when i’m high but i know it’s still going to be one of my best because i’m high and, sidenote, i hate that people use the word ‘high’ in reference to all drugs because when i say i’m high i only ever mean pot but when i read certain stories there are characters who are also high but they did hard, scary, addictive drugs that i would neve...
Read more