Masked Reflection

“Masked Reflection”

For Vanity


Her name is Vanity. I see myself staring at the person in front of me. She copies my every move and she smiles so tenderly while she fixes whatever that’s not perfect of me.

I try not to call upon Vanity, but she makes me want to keep standing in front of her and let her do her magic on me. She keeps me perfect and flawless in her yes, that when she’s finished, she looks at me like an artist pleased with her masterpiece. “Now the world is ready to see you”, smilingly she told me.

She surprises me every time I see her at a place other than the rectangular box in my room. She checks on me all the time, that I can’t help but let her fix me again. Like a mother doting on her daughter, she dotes on me. “Everything must be perfect! Everyone must never see you flawed!” she always tells me. But do I really want that, when my life is everything but perfect?
I wonder what her life is like behind that wall of glass. She’s always smiling and I’ve never seen her cry. I wish I was like that, I wish my life was like hers. She seems so perfect and so free, that I long to BE her.

I stood in front of her one day and said, “Vanity, why do you care for me so? When I was sad, you made me smile. When I was down, you gave me a make-over to give me back my spirit. I ask you again, why do you care to make me perfect in the eyes of unfamiliar people, when I myself am not?!” She stared back at me with mixed feelings. She gave me no reply, then I asked her, “Who are you really?”. Her silence was deafening, and then I realized, “Oh! I forgot. You are me, my mask, my reflection… my Vanity.”

I see myself staring at the person in front of me, the person behind that thin wall of glass. Her name is Vanity and even though I see her familiar face, she is still every bit a stranger to me, my masked reflection.