In the mirror my body is long and skinny,

my ribs peeking out of my skin with each breath I take.

My stomach is flat,

for now at least,

and I say goodbye to a me I never got to know.

my camera sees a different image of me,

shorter and fuller, a little less sure of herself.

My eyes inspect every photo,

making sure I pick the right one

that hides the double chin I didn’t have an hour ago

- or did I? -

and my back looks the straightest.

my own view of my body is distorted,

my thighs stretching to three times their size

as I sit on the couch and compare my stick arms to the rest of me,

wondering if I always looked this contradictory

with my tiny wrists and wide legs.

Disproportionate in every way,

the clay of my body molds into a new person

every time my reflection catches up to my shadow.

I am reshaped by my own brain every moment of every day

until the person staring back at me in the mirror

from this morning is not who she says she is.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

but so is pain, anger, loneliness.

A horrible creation of the mind,

but the monster has always been me,

shapeshifting from one form to the next.

If I ran into myself on the street,

would I even recognize her?