A woman stares back from the mirror, though she’s not who I was expecting to see. Something in the pallor of her sun-starved skin and sunken eyes ages her in a way for which my heart was unprepared.
There’s familiarity in the slight crook of her nose, in the ears that are too large for her face. And while her eyes haven’t changed, there’s a deep sorrow that doesn’t exist in my memories. A haunted vacancy in her gaze. A disappointed resignation.
With a slight rush, I search for something I can’t name, for something more than unchanged eyes, a familiar nose. Where is her hunger? The passion for life that I can so clearly recall?All I see is unmasked defeat, a pleading, in the way she stares back at me.
A gaze that says, “please, bring me back to life.”
I feel it set in, the same resignation so painted on her face. It is a mirror, after all. My body begins to feel its weight, though my heart carries the burden most. Who is this woman before me? She’s not one I know. I cast my gaze away and leave her behind with a soft click of the light.
Finding the Shadow 