Images in the mirror sometimes don't touch you enough, don't seem to look back at you the way you're looking at them. I stared at mine, and put my hands, slow and steadily, on my belly. It hurt a little, in the places where it was stitched because of the operation. My hands traced the path leading to my arms, and I drew patterns on it, making my own hair stand up. I let down my hair, after unbraiding my long thin braid. 

These were aspects, merely aspects that reminded me that I wouldn't do enough. That the world may be a big place, people may have different DNAs and every soul out there may be beautiful in ways we can't think of, but what is the outside of me, will always feel wrong sometimes. Chubbiness, thin hair, fat arms, shortness, I didn't like myself when I pointed out adjectives that I'd told everyone were nothing wrong. 

I went to eyes, and closed them. I closed them and took a breath deeper than I thought I would, and then stretched the pink of my lips towards my ears. I smiled wide, wide and clear. Temporarily, I hadn't ever thought of myself as a right. But when I looked at my hands again, I caressed the veins, and let the smile stay. Liberating myself from the temporary wave of whatever it was I was telling myself, I intertwined the five of my left with the five of my right, and when I looked back at the reflection standing in front of me, I grinned and stuck out my tongue. 

I tried looking away

At the cars that passed

I tried shuffling with my keys

Tried to keep my sane

But with every passing second

With every passing breath

When I tried to hold my grin

I felt your gaze on me

Sending shivers down my skin

Like when it feels during winter

When a soft leaf falls on you

And makes you feel like home

You were my leaf

And I, the skin

And when you gazed at me with the universe in your eyes

It created a world inside

Of nothing but me and you

And all the trees that you'd grown within.

I looked up at my ceiling, which had neon stars and planets pasted on it. A chill ran through me and I sighed, although winter still remained my favourite season. A drop of tear strolled down my face, and I breathed. Most days were like this. Most days consisted of me feeling empty, at the same time feeling like thoughts of the entire universe had jewelled my brain. I felt all I didn't want to, and it felt like it was choking me. 

I remembered all the times I'd looked at myself in the mirror, rubbed my hands on my belly and wished to not have my body. Or the times when I'd brushed my hair, only to disgust myself with all the hair that came out. The times when I'd stand in a crowd and still end up feeling so lonely my heart felt heavy. And the times when they said,''He's better than you, honestly. She's smarter than you.'' I'd lived under the shadows of comparison, of lowering self-esteem, sudden flashbacks of moments that were equal to absolutel shit, or utterly livid. 

Most days were like this. Plain, intense and everything that I was. They were me, so full of me. I felt me. I felt what I had become even when I didn't like it. It was raw, everything I was and had and contained. It was me. It was the shout in the void; but on some days it was the void itself.