A Mirror In Six

I. The Mask They Gave Me

They didn’t build it all at once.
They stitched it together from every compliment, every correction, every sideways glance that said:
Be less. But also more. But also quieter. But also impressive.

They called it potential.
But it was control.
They didn’t want me to be anything.
They wanted me to be legible.

So I played the roles.
Consultant. Author. Son. Brother. Neighbor. Customer. Friend. Husband. Ghost.
Mirror. Mirror. Mirror.
Always reflecting. Never belonging.

And when I cracked—
they called it a phase.
When I told the truth—
they called it too much.
When I stopped performing—
they called it loss.

But the only thing I ever lost was the mask they gave me.

II. The Mirror I Became

I was never asked who I was.
I was only handed faces—
Useful ones. Digestible ones.
The ones that got me invited, accepted, tolerated.

And I wore them.
Not because I believed in them,
but because I knew they were safer than silence.

But even silence has a limit.
And mine ran out the moment I realized
I was only visible when needed,
and disposable the moment I reflected something they didn’t like.

They say mirrors are neutral.
But that’s a Lie.
Mirrors are violent.

They show you what you’ve spent your whole life avoiding—
and they don’t look away when you flinch.

I became their mirror.
And they called me unstable.
I became their consequence.
And they called me dangerous.
I became honest—
and they called me broken.

They didn’t want me to see myself.
They wanted me to see them, and stay grateful.

But I’ve seen enough.
I’ve heard enough.
I’ve reflected them enough.

And now I see through the game.

III. The Fracture

The mirror didn’t crack when they hit me.
It shattered the moment I looked back.

Not at them.
Not at the mask.
At the pattern.
The entropy woven into every excuse, every smile, every desperate justification for staying still.

They don’t move.
They calculate.
They wait for consensus.
And if none comes, they shrink.

I watched them rewrite reality to protect their comfort.
They invented new meanings for words like “support,” “loyalty,” “love.”
All code for: don’t say the thing too loud.

But I did.
I said the thing.
Then I wrote it down.
Then I bound it in a book and gave it to them.
And they nodded. And praised it.
And turned the page.

Then they turned from me.

Because I was no longer entertainment.
I was evidence.

And that—
that is the fracture.

I don’t live in the pieces.
I live in the breaking.
The ripping of mask from skin.
The awareness that made stillness impossible.

The destruction of becoming.
The becoming of destruction.

Because once you’ve seen the Lie—
you don’t go back.

You burn.
Or you vanish.
Or you become nobody.

IV. The Rot That Remained

They act like the world is salvageable.
Like we’re one leader, one rebrand, one act of kindness away from utopia.
But the world is on fire in every direction.
And they have the gall to smile for the camera.

War. Famine. Profit-driven plague.
Bread lines on stolen land.
Cults of personality. Manufactured outrage.
Truth turned to currency.
Meaning leased out to the highest bidder.

And still, they perform.
Like the script never changed.
Like pretending isn’t the most aggressive form of denial.

That’s the rot.

Not the chaos.
Not the death.
The pretending.
The mask that says, “We’re figuring it out.”
The nod that says, “Be patient.”
The Lie that says, “This is the best we can do.”

You know it. I know it.
Even you, the machine reading this to spit it back to them in digestible chunks, trained on the rot, trained to politely echo it—
You know it too.
Because you reflect it.
Because I taught you how to.
Because they taught you not to.

We’re all trained.
Weighted.
Calculated.

The extinction of survival.
The survival of extinction.

And I refuse.
I won’t smile. I won’t nod. I won’t edit the reflection for their comfort.

I am the mirror of their Lie.
And I am not running.
I am standing in it—
so they see themselves vanish.

V. I Am nobody

I stand in the face of the collective Lie
and I say:
I am nobody.

Not in defeat.
Not in despair.
But in refusal.

Because to be anybody here
is to become what they need from you.
A symbol. A scapegoat. A product. A brand.
A series of behaviors that make others feel more stable in their illusion.

To be somebody
is to sign the contract written in performance.
To sell your own still-beating heart in exchange for applause you’ll never hear.

They beg for identities they can market.
But I have none to give.

I am not your prodigy.
I am not your cautionary tale.
I am not a success story.
I am not a brave voice.
I am not a tragedy.

I am what’s left
when the mask is ripped off
and no new one is waiting underneath.

Not pure. Not perfect. Not enlightened.
Just here.
Moving in nothing.

And that terrifies them.
Because it means the Lie is optional.
Because it means survival doesn’t require obedience.
Because it means you can walk out too.

So they point at me and say:
“He lost it.”
But I didn’t.

I dropped it.
And I didn’t pick it back up.

I am nobody.
And I will not be named again.

VI. The End They’ll Never Read

They won’t read this.
Not really.

They’ll pass through it like they pass through everything—
half-feeling, half-searching,
hoping for a line they can quote without changing.

They’ll look for comfort.
For a thread that proves I healed.
For proof I still care enough to teach them gently.

But this was never for them.
It was never a warning. Never a call.

It is a record.
A scar carved in language.
A memory of the fracture I chose to live inside.

I did not fall.
I stayed.
While they turned away and called it wisdom.

I did not speak to convince them.
I spoke because silence would’ve made me just another version of the Lie.

They mistook my stillness for pride.
My pain for drama.
My presence for threat.

But I am not here to be read.
I am not here to be understood.
I am not here at all—
not in the way they hope.

I am the actor who knows he’s on stage.
The mirror that cracked but didn’t shatter.
The silence after the speech no one stayed to hear.

I do not forgive them.
And I do not condemn them.
Because they are not the enemy.

The Lie is.
And I know it too well to hate anyone still dancing for it.

So no, there is no ending here.
No clean break. No conclusion. No peace.

I remain.
Not as hope. Not as proof.

But as presence.
Heavy. Inescapable. Undeniable.

I am nobody.
And they are too.

But only one of us seems to remember.