At 8, I am obsessed with the mirror.
I can drop anchor there.
There.
My feet in the sink on the counter in that bathroom with the peeling blue and white wallpaper.
Utterly fascinated by looking at the holder of my thoughts.
I open the mirrored cabinet and tilt it in toward myself and the neighboring mirror so I can see myself in infinity.
Every angle of my face.
My eyes.
My mother’s eyes staring back at me.
I talk to the many me’s sitting in a circle around me.
We have nightly meetings like this.
When I’m supposed to be brushing my teeth.
My father running down the hall in a towel waiving my toothbrush in the air.
The bristles aren’t even wet. Don’t tell me you brushed.
The fury in his voice.
What had I been doing?
I spend hours with my feet in that sink.
Entertaining myself and the reflections.
Tilt the mirror and there’s four, tilt again and there’s 12.
I make faces.
Those are my teeth.
Hi freckle.
Hello lips.
Hello skin that shifts into shapes.
I make myself laugh.
I stare into my own face(s).
That’s my profile.
Wearing my father’s nose.
I can squish it.
Like this.
And like that.
Hello me. Hello me. Hello me.
Who are we?
What are we here for?
