I look in the mirror and I do not know what I see. A girl stands before me and she is me, although I know not when I became her. She has my hair, long and red and always a bit to straight for my tastes. She has my blue green eyes, though they don't seem to sparkle quite like they used to. She has my arms, chubby and bumpy, my legs the same. She wears my feet, stumpy toes and all. She inhabits my body, never as thin as I'd like, never as flexible, never as muscular. Her mouth too is mine, pink lips quick to smile, quick to laugh, quick to tremble.

I know she is me, what I have become, but I cannot reconcile her with the me in my head. She is an anachronism, a disjointed mimicry of what I once was. I do not have skin covered in scars too numerous to count. It was not I who carved brutal wings into my back, desperate to become better, to transcend myself. Who excised the skin of my arms, searching to be rid of the foul creature inside me? I was not the one who etched those terrible words into my hips, a permanent mockery with a question I could not possibly answer.

I do not hide from mirrors as she does, taking such pains to ensure that my skin is always covered. I do not weep at my reflection, mourning the loss of myself and of what I want to be, yet I know that someday I will and in a way I already do.

I do not know myself anymore, only where I am. I watched as I consumed myself, no longer in control of what I see or think or do. Hearing only what she hears and subject to the monsters that come at night to taunt her with evil tongues and razor words that cut deeper than she ever did.

Shall I fight? The only way I know how. I fight with my words. The gentle reminder that tomorrow is another day. I give her hope with the words of poets and saints and God. I give her the words of dreamers and lovers and the ones who have survived.  I give her the feel of grass on my bare feet and the kiss of the sun on my skin, the cool caress of the water lapping over me. I give her the glimmer of the full moon reflected in her eyes. I give her a fistful of life to cling to and when she tires and shakes  because she cannot go on I shall give her one more thing. One more gift in the only way I can.

I shall give her a hand to hold and a mouth that spews stardust.