When Mirrors Lie

Prompt: What do these texts suggest to you about idealism and truth? (Responded to Image)

 

Water hits the sand. Our feet sink into the sand and relish in the warmth these minuscule grains seem to provide. Yet when it begins to burn our feet, the sand almost begins to beckon the water closer, and we feel relieved at the momentary coldness. And within this warmth and chill we are at peace and calm for a moment there. Just a moment. And right when we begin to relish within the tranquility of the water, it disappears. Then we run after it, and the water seems to move with a such ferocity so quickly that we wonder what went wrong. You see that was her, and that was him. It was them.

They were beautiful together. And when one saw them content within each other’s eyes and company, you refused to disrupt them. For they were a painting of red lipsticks and tailored suits. They were a dream and a fantasy intertwined within one. It seemed they could only love each other, and they were brought forth into those world solely to complete each other whole. But that’s a senseless kind of selfish, because their love only allowed their senses to live for one another, not the world around them. That’s a selfish one can ignore and not become irritated by, because it cannot physically harm anyone. Yet the pain was there; prominent, yet hidden to our naked human eye. For they refused to live for the world but rather in it, invested only in each other. And us as the observers, we fought to be something relative to that, something akin, and in this desperate search we pained and lost our better selves.

See I believed that it was possible to live like them, show the world what it was to be like them. But when you die, does the world ever seem to care towards what you wanted it to notice? Or does it believe it cares and then slowly seeps any recognition of you from the people you love?

You see they both were loved by individuals but kindly refused to love them. It seemed that the longevity of life was not enough for them; they strived for more and refused to accept less. So time was theirs, in control for their manifestation, because their affection was limitless, and time had to bend to its will. This is true love, it is a love that devotes time to itself, and nurtures itself to grow. I wanted that love. We all wanted that love.

When you glanced at them, you felt their essence had somehow intertwined within yours. But it was only a little bit, only so minuscule that you would never be satisfied, but longed for more of what they possessed. And in this moment you would get giddy, bleary eyed, and almost feel blissful. But they were selfish now, and that essence never seemed to want to engrave itself permanently within you. So you embodied and relished within the feeling, knowing it would leave. That was our love; a love that was never complete. It was an imperfect love, one that we experienced for the briefest of moments, but that was ours alone to relish within. Just for that moment. Only for that moment.

I felt like them and never wanted to leave, because I had a moment to myself in which I felt what they felt. And I was afraid of the departure, of this desire to flee from me because it never fled from them; they had that certainty. I was anxious of the moment I would be left alone, and would have to breathe again. Faster and faster, until enough air was brought to satisfy my lungs, and remind myself that I resided within my reality, not theirs.

I had longings of more of what they had, we all did. And we sank deeper and deeper searching for the moment of time that the universe had maliciously withdrawn from our battered souls.

You see as we briefly attained remnants of that love, it always sought to take a piece of us with it. It was as if their love, the love of him and her couldn’t live without us, it needed an observer to remind itself of its ethereal nature. Only if we had not yearned for what they shared, we could have lived without it. We were stronger than them, until they entranced us, and we slowly began to eradicate ourselves and our senses, because we began to long for something much greater. And the need to lose ourselves for something so elusive and fleeting for us, oh it was so desperate and united.

You see when we gaze at the water and relish in the warmth of the soft sand, we seem to forget that the water gave birth to the sand. Water in its brutality, ebbed rocks into these minuscule grains of sand. We seem to forget the sand is the compliant server of the water. Because as the water begins to beckon itself closer to the shore, it doesn’t leave to only come back again. It leaves to take the sand with it. Their love came to us, lived with us, only to take us with it. It stripped us of our truth and we were full to the brim of unsatisfied ideals.

The water isn’t our ideal peaceful dream, it never was. Because as we step closer into the ocean, desperate for our feet to meet the sand and water all at once, to feel that moment of tranquility, we begin to beckon ourselves closer to the water’s mercy. The water is unforgiving, it always was. Funny how we forget and almost become entranced with the water’s beauty and inability to harm, just like theirs.

We slowly begin to lead ourselves to our death. Because once the tides begin to push off of the sand, they come back more ferocious and daunting. The tides care about themselves alone. And the shallow water you once overpowered, begins to push on you. Its heavy weight doesn’t allow you to breathe. The oxygen your lung craves disappears. The water you once thought you could float on, becomes the one you wish to set you free. But it doesn’t. It never does.

See they live on, him and her, even as you leave the Earth, finally realizing, it doesn’t mean anything at all to become them.

They were a mere reflection of themselves. A reflection of what they too wished they would become. Mirrors lie, because the ones who stand before it only witness their truth, whereas others seem to become blind to it. They saw the flaws within the stained lipstick that seemed too light to be red, and the suit that seemed too withered to be tailored. But we didn’t, we just needed to be what they believed they were. They were never what we thought they were, but we chased it just the same. We lost our truth trying to chase an expectation that was never there.

But maybe their mirror never lied to us, maybe we just chose to let it, and we knew that somehow, yet chose to believe otherwise.

Because when mirrors lie, we do too.