the self isn't safe either- part 2

She sat before the mirror, though the reflection hardly seemed to belong to her anymore; it was a figure suspended in fog, eyes swollen with sleep from exhaustion that no hours could cure. The glass itself seemed tired of holding her image, as if the weight of her stillness pressed against its surface. Around her, the world continued its silent accusations, an untouched plate curdling on the desk, a towel stiff with neglect, daylight bruising the curtains. But none of these demanded as much as the face staring back at her, demanding to know why she had abandoned herself.

Sleep had become both punishment and refuge, stretching across hours until days blurred together; she would close her eyes to escape and wake only to find the same heaviness waiting at the edge of the bed. Hunger arrived like a faint whisper, drowned beneath the louder hum of despair, and the very thought of reaching for sustenance became another task she could not endure. She was trapped by chains, by mirrors multiplying her failures, reflecting the collapse of small rituals- washing, eating, stepping outside- until they became grand betrayals of life itself.

And yet, beneath all of it, there was an unspoken rage, her own mingling with the world’s, pressing against her glass prison. They could not understand why her limbs refused to rise, why her body betrayed her with this stillness, and so they grew angry, mistaking paralysis for choice. The mirror caught that, too. The way she carried her sorrow, their disappointment, as though her illness were a burden she had chosen to cradle.

She lowered her gaze, but the reflection waited, patient and merciless, asking the same unanswerable question: how do you explain a hunger that is not for food, a thirst that water cannot quench, a fatigue that sleeps through alarms and still wakes heavier? The mirror cracked, without sound, with silence, and in those fractures her face scattered into pieces, each one bearing the same truth: she was not simply refusing to live; she was dissolving quietly, while the world demanded proof that her suffering was real. In every reflection, she was there and not there. A ghost occupying her own body. A child punished not for breaking rules, but for breaking down.

thanks for making it till the end. i swear i’m not trying to traumatize you (or maybe just a little).

sending love.

anss.