The Distance In Mirrors We’ve Learned To Hate

We have built a fortress of certainty
so high I can no longer see the wreckage below.
Beneath the bravado and brittle pride,
I’ve always known the truth:
humans are nothing if not selfish
and I fear I am all the same.

Every action leaves its shadow
on the people I claim to love.
And the more I take,
the further they drift,
or the further I push them away.
The distance grows,
thin cracks in glass spreading wider,
until I am alone,
sitting with the echo of my failures.

Do I hate myself?
The way I speak, the way I sound.
The way I take too much space
or not enough.
I hate the way I cling to people’s perception of me,
while keeping them at arm’s length,
the way I demand their closeness
but can’t bring myself to open the door to them.

How can we love our spouse, our child,
our mother and father, our friends,
when I can’t stand the sight of me?
When the mirror reveals nothing
but a stranger wearing my face,
where her features are warped by shame or inadequacy.

I carry this weight, this quiet gnawing guilt,
knowing I am the architect of my own isolation.
Is my obesity so monstrous?
Or is this monstrosity the price of being human?
To hate yourself so much
that you forget how to let others love you.

I take and take,
until my hands are heavy with absence.
I take until there is nothing left to hold.
Until the mirror turns away from me too,
until the silence of estrangement
becomes the loudest thing I own.

And still, I ache for the desire to want
connection. I yearn to have the longing
to bridge the gap
between me and the people I love.

I wonder if they see me anymore,
And I wonder, do I want them to?
Am I not already home?
Is there even a place to find my way back from?
Will they leave me here,
alone with the reflection
I’ve learned to hate?