The eyes of the looking glass

Tada! My newest creation. Very creative if I do say so myself.

The second they took me out of my package, I started seeing. I saw the happy couple, arguing good naturedly over if my corners were even, and I looked out over the little grin on the corner of her mouth as she slapped him on the arm and demanded he listen to her, watched him roll his eyes with an over-the-top show of annoyance. They finally decided I was straight and looked around the small bathroom, their smiles proud and strong. That proud couple stayed with me for years, their bathroom slowly changing, the toliet replaced after a major flooding in '99, the shower curtains updated with the paint in '04. I watched as their children grew, watched their first son shave for the first time, watched the middle child, the clumsy one, be patched up over and over again by the mother. Things started to change when the third one came along. I could hear more shouting ringing through the house, saw less of the happy couple getting ready in the mornings together, saw more of the mother putting on her makeup with a sad look floating in her eyes. The father hardly ever came in anymore, and when he did, he never smiled like he used too. He just stared blankly. 

The mother became pregnant about a year after the blank stares started. And then she had the baby, and I watched as the baby grew up in the tub, her wide blue eyes smiling out at everyone. I watched as the little girl grew into a young woman, and watched as the family slowly fell apart. The father left. The mother started dressing differently, something I'd never seen before. More miniskirts and skin tight dresses. She started stumbling into the dark bathroom in the dead of night, her mascara and lipstick smeared across her face, her eyes lidded with drugs and alcohol and things I hoped the daughter would never get into. And the daughter slowly got quieter. She didn't smile in the shower anymore, like she used too. She didn't sing love ballads into the shampoo bottle, she didn't bounce in front of the me while she brushed her teeth anymore. In fact, all I could hear when she was inside the shower were gut wrenching, horribly saddening sobs. Whispers of regrets that no young girl should have. And every time she stepped out, I observed she'd gotten just a little bit thinner, the dark circles under her eyes were just a bit darker. And then, I watched as she forced herself to throw up anything and everything she ate. Watched her sit on the toilet seat and cut her inner thighs with her razor, wincing in pain.

She never comes in the bathroom anymore. And the mother, the one who once had the light in her eyes, is packing me up now. "We're leaving this house, the house full of tears," She whispers softly. "You saw more than your fair share of them, looking glass. Thank you for being there."

Some people might think that this woman was crazy for talking to a mirror. But I understood. I had seen their hearts, their minds, their fears, their happiness. All through the eyes of someone who could never help. Someone who could just watch silently and wish to help. I was the looking glass, and I was a part of the broken family from the house of tears.