(Originally posted November 2014)

My fingers press against the cold glass causing the area just around them to fog from my warmth. I’d love to break this glass that tells me I’m not pretty enough, sexy enough, skinny enough… I’d love to break it and cut away this disgusting flesh that makes me feel like I’m not enough. I’d love to bleed away all these feelings of hatred and disgust. I’d like to feel the pain of that instead of the useless pain of self abhorrence.

I stare hard at that bitch who screams inside my head that I’m ugly and useless. I can’t stand her voice, it feels like a hammer breaking bones inside my skull. I can’t listen to her for another single minute.

I press harder on the glass and focus every ounce of my magic on those points of contact. I know I might break the mirror, but the sound of that might be welcome compared to the hurtful abuse going on inside my skull. I push harder and harder until I suddenly begin to feel my fingers permeating the membrane of this plane.

My reflection sees and laughs, taking on that awful voice. “Whatcha gonna do, baby doll? Do you think you can come through here and shut me up? God, you are dense.”

I wonder if I’m strong enough. Can I truly breech reality? Can I go through this glass? Is this possible?

Her abuse begins anew, from the other side of that force field, and I don’t even care if this is insane and I’ve had some sort of mental break. I am going to shut her up. I am going to make her stop or I’m going to kill her.

My arm slips in and she backs up, laughing harder until my grip finds her wrist and I pull, hard.

Her face slams into the glass, and I find this incredibly amusing, since my arm is literally reaching through this completely impermeable surface. I do it again twice, giggling at the shock in her expression. She tries to yank her hand from my grasp, but only succeeds in pulling me further in. I lift my other hand to brace myself from smacking my own face on the glass, but then those fingers begin to slip through the surface as well.

I yank her toward me again, and punch her hard in the face. She bounces back, but not out of my grip, and blood begins to gush from her nose. It was a surprisingly square hit, given the awkwardness of this fight, but I do it again before she recovers her wit and starts to fight me.

She captures both of my hands and yanks me into the glass, but it is not solid for me, and my upper body slips into the reflection as if it were another room.

At this point, I realize I am clearly crazy and decide to just pummel that wicked whore to death on the other side. As I lunge toward her, she lands a good punch to my throat, knocking the wind out of me, and I fall back into my own bathroom, wheezing and lifting my bloody hand to my throat. I can smell the acrid tinge and wonder for a moment if this might actually be real. Am I fighting the bitch in the mirror.

I stand and stare at her, blood pouring from her broken nose down her chin onto my favorite blouse. “You’re ruining my shirt.”

The shock in her eyes is disarming, as she stares at my chest, and when I look down, it is clear why. I am bleeding too, and I reach up to feel my own broken nose, even though she never landed a punch anywhere but my neck. Realization dawns on us both, as she too is holding her own throat and wheezing. If we fight each other long enough, I will rip apart.

I stand and wonder if I could do that. Kill myself to silence the hate. Cause myself the greatest pain in order to end all pain.

I lean down against the vanity on my elbows and revel in the silence of her contemplating my ability to end my own life in order to end her. My blood drips into the sink but then suddenly stops, and as I stand upright and look at my reflection again, I see that nothing has happened. It wasn’t real. But one tiny drop of blood remains, on the edge of the sink, daunting me.

A reminder? I can beat myself senseless over the reflection in the mirror. I can beat myself to death, if I’m not careful.

I look again at the girl in that glass. A sight that normally fills me with ‘not enoughs’. Because I will forever be not pretty enough or sexy enough or thin enough or smart enough or sweet enough or good enough… This time, the girl I see is just enough.

Enough to keep me from pummeling myself to death.

That girl in the reflection, that girl who plenty of people DO think is enough… Maybe it’s time she accepted that perfection is unattainable. And that today, at least today, I am enough.