I rarely look at the mirror. In fact, I’ve sacrificed corpuscles by looking away when I shave. The guy who lives in there depresses me. He always appears ready to slink back to bed. And his face has old person lesions-the kind that hospitals use as pretense to pay for expensive equipment.
Occasionally, like a burglar casing the place, I pause and savor the voyeuristic guilt of standing where he must stand and fingering his intimate tools of grooming. So, I know that he brushes and flosses, although his teeth could not be described as pearly or white. For just a moment, I feel superior.
Still, I know that he watches me back. I can see him in my peripheral vision, perfectly mimicking my movements in some form of silent mockery as I enter his shower. As I dry myself, he recedes into the steam. Emboldened then, and more relaxed, I comb through his medicine cabinet. Zantac..tums..and pear flavored gummies. I had not imagined him getting high. Not with those thoughtful eyes.
He both affirms and invalidates me. And it is precisely that duality, so perfectly synthesized in his not-quite-judgmental gaze, that unnerves me. Somehow, he knows that I know that he knows my darkest secrets. Like an artist who paints himself painting himself-until, there is no discernable end or beginning. Except for him, my worst acts and most unpardonable sins might, otherwise unreflected, simply cease to ever have occurred. But he is not a tree (or van Gough), and my life is not his forest (or palette). Thus, we will each hear us fall.
I’ve heard that he works out religiously, but his torso appears over-fleshed and agnostic. Rolls of flab occlude distinct outlines of large muscle. He seems a jumble of contradictions, but in his case bound together by a self-acceptance and serene air of fatalism that I have never known.
He pens a column for an online newspaper that I follow. It contains occasional musings of non-belief oddly juxtaposed with sentiments of humanism. Sometimes, his pieces lash out. I wonder if the writer critiques himself even half as savagely. Not burdened, though, by my sort of insecurities, he would care not at all about my approval.
But I desperately desire his. I long for him to acknowledge that a long life has at least made me wiser, and that my lowest deeds do not define me. But the man in the mirror remains silent-and fresh blood drips upon the sink.
Sent from Outlook
