Lessons

I don't like mirrors.

In elementary, they scared me -
a regular audience to strange dreams,
singing old tunes and housing
eye-scratching monsters that honestly
still make me anxious today.

In middle school, they reflected
a person I did not like - a girl
not good enough, too big for
her own skin and too
cowardly for her own good.

They were tricksters, liars
in the funhouse that I
would constantly run into,
painful and barring the way to
freedom.

Today, they show themselves -
a cold, hard truth that is
hard to change, harder
to accept.

I'm getting better,
learning to find little things to love,
pieces of the whole to hold
close to myself.

And over time
I've learned something important:

I don't have to like everything the mirror tells.
I just have to live with it.