Feeling Like a Broken Mirror

A Poem by Austin

It's like being tortured.
They're cutting off one finger,
one toe,
pulling one tooth,
then another finger,
and then another toe.
Each part of me is being destroyed,
chipped off.
Every single thing that made me who I am...
It's disappearing.
I used to be something, somebody,
I used to be me, Austin.
But now I'm not.
I have a label, but no identity.
I have a name, but not a form.
Where did it all go?
It's like it's your birthday,
but all your friends are out of town,
and your family forgets.
It's like falling in mud after you shower.
It's like a vacuum being attached to your head,
ripping out your face through your brain.
Like a single puzzle piece.
Like a blank sheet of paper, crumpled and thrown away.
Like a ripped shirt.
Like a forgotten piece of a memory.
Like an ancient song,
you used to be important, but now nobody remembers.

I know who I used to be.
The girl who said I changed...
The girl who said she wished things could be like they used to be...
She was right.

Where does the time go?
Where is the land where your memories are real?
Where is the past?
"You can't live in the past" I hear a passing voice say to a friend.
You have to live in what's happening now, they tell each other.
But the past looks far more bright.
The future looks dark, like heading into a tunnel.

There's not a light at the end of every tunnel.
I know an old man whose tunnel is darker than ever.
The man is nobody special to my life.
Not a grandfather.
Not a friend.
Not a boss.
Just a man I know.
All he has is his past,
back when his son with with him.
He went the wrong way into the tunnel.

She says "You have to find the joy in the moment"
Sounds simple enough.
Cartoonish, actually.
But there are some moments,
Too many for me to care to count,
Where joy just doesn't exist.
Not even the fact that you're breathing is pleasant.
It's actually a burden.

Broken...
A shattered mirror, to be exact.
With no qualities to call its own.
No form.
No identity.
That's what I feel like.