When I look in the mirror, I feel a deep aloneness. Nobody knows how many tears I've cried, the sweat I've shed, the blood that had dripped down my body like tiny knives. Nobody knows how many times I've felt so lost, nobody knows how often my eyes fill with searing stabs of melancholy. Nobody knows how often I've picked myself apart in this looking glass and how I've hated my boring eyes and short stature and glasses and freckled face. Nobody knows how many times I've slammed into the mirror, crumpling into a ball of despair. Because once I pick myself up again, I paste a bright, fake smile on my face, laugh and joke and do all the things I'm supposed to do, but when I'm alone I feel the demons of insanity creeping up against me and I fall and before the morning comes, I wipe away my tears and do it all over again. The looking glass is the only one who has seen my tears. The looking glass is the only one who knows all of my fears. I stare once more into the mirror and smile, insanity crawling up my neck, because I know that I can't escape this endless cycle of madness.