BODY IMAGE Poem: Mirror, by Leigh Hansen

I remember my mom’s mirror. It was made of a warm beige wood swirled by dark knots and splintering at old corners that had been chipped. The thing had been with her since before I was conscious of what a mirror was. I only cared that it was big and beautiful. It stood on wooden legs and swung its oval face on metal hinges framing its slender sides. It was decorated by swirling red paint and polka dots that I would trace ad nauseum with my small pink fingers. I loved looking into that mirror. I remember in my youth racing to my mom’s bedroom after a bath, or shower, (or maybe a shobath which is what I called it when I would block the drain and let it fill as the hot water rained on my back.) And as I burst through her door, my short hair wet and spiky, I dropped my towel; ignoring her shocked face, and stared at my buck naked form, only to declare with such vigor and confidence “I’m beautiful!”

For the next decade I would struggle to say and mean those same words. I don’t know when I started to feel so insecure about myself, but I doubt school helped my esteem. I would struggle to make friends and cling to them out of my fear of abandonment. Why did I let it get so bad? I had no courage to speak up for myself, would struggle to talk to new people as I was easily intimidated, and could only dream about one day asking my various crushes throughout the years if they would even want to hang out. My self esteem eventually reached a point where I
felt I had to remain as skinny as that mirror. It was clearly my only value since the girls in my gym class commented on my thigh gap. I think I wanted to be skinny enough for the wind to whisk me away. Or maybe I wanted to be swallowed up altogether by the universe and disappear. No one would miss seeing me. Then he came along…

“You’re very beautiful.” He told me. It was something he had told me a few times before, but it still managed to shock me. I couldn’t believe it. You’re just saying that to be nice. Or You’re only complimenting me because I complimented you first… I truly began to doubt those words when his lies came to the surface. Still I told him I forgave him. I thought it would change things.

Why was I so desperate to cling to him? In that moment where we laid together, his hand and fingers tracing invisible paths on my waist down to my hip, just wanted to forget. I wanted things to go back to how they were. Where we could just smile and joke and laugh like old times without remembering how he had hurt me and how everything had changed. I could never be his again and he would never be mine. But it felt so real and intimate that I wanted to believe he actually loved me, and still did, despite him admitting otherwise. How could I be so stupid?

So oblivious to not notice? He doesn’t love me… This isn’t real to him. It hurt too much to hope for otherwise.

In the following weeks I would play our moments together in my head like a broken record. I obsessed about it. Agonized. Searched for an answer that didn’t exist. Our moments were gone, but I would cry about missing him and then catch my reflection and hate myself for it because I knew he didn’t feel the same. He had claimed he wanted to remain friends but made no effort toward it and I began to realize I was worth more. Dammit effort was the bare minimum of what I was worth. It was then that I decided I would focus on myself and rebuild the esteem that I had let crumble all those years ago. I would find peace and love within myself and let go of the one who had hurt me, because otherwise, I would be letting down that small child who still lived inside me. And I know she deserves the world. She deserves to love who she sees in the mirror again