Chapter 1
I am a person shaped mirror.
People look at me, and they see the person they are. Who they truly are, without all the pitiful facades, and sturdy masks.
They see not me, but a harsh reality, in which inflicts even harsher pain in their sodden minds. This causes spicy reactions, each unique in flavour upon my tongue, and belted upon my young shoulders in three forms, rejection, fear and anger.
I take a step onto the ground everyone else treads, and I see the paths forgotten. I see the anguish of crushed dreams in their eyes, and burdens strapped like a pit to their ankles. I see the love they wish to have, and the people their souls revel in meeting. Discomfort is the least of emotions pointed my way like shards of glass.
I have learned.
I have learned to only reflect, like the good mirror I am, and not to absorb, any of the malicious swords. I see feelings, yet do not allow myself to take part in the sunbath of happiness that clouds the air around the others my age.Instead I look on, unable to emanate my true feelings, and be me. I cannot step out of this Alice sized shoe box by myself.
For I do not know how.
I have no hands reaching out to me, and I also cannot reach towards my salvation. So I reflect, and I darken, and I hide. Because it is all I can do by myself, without handholds in this wall I am to climb.
Everyday was a black and white picture. It held the image of living, yet had none of the vivid colors that gave a photo life. Still, I loved what I could.
I loved the wind that held a harps strike of warmth in it. I loved still waters, that hint at what is held in the depths below. I loved the night, because of the defining silence promised only at midnight, that curved it’s way into me, the same way the moon carved itself into the sky.
It’s haunting, it’s cold, and I fell into it again and again.
Everything was held still, frozen in time on my life. Until one spring day. This was the day that my barren existence grew a lone tree, that spread into my being and took root in who I was.
This was the day I changed.
This was the day I met Austen.
