To the girls who feel like they aren't enough

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
Her face is cracked. Crooked.
I know not of her pale complexion, her awkward angles
Her limbs which tremble like a new born fawn, her limp hair.
But her glacier eyes are mine.

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
I beam at her. Yet she is wallpaper and her image does not waver,
'Who are you?' I begin to ask but her mouth moves along with mine
I falter.
'I am you' she whispers 'I am what you will become'

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
She is still. Quiet. Subdued.
I want to ask her, who has done this to you?
But an eerie smile is tugging on her lips
She has done this to herself.

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
With a gaunt frame and bloodied fingernails.
'You are enough' I tell her
The tendrils of her inky black hair hiss at me
'I will never be enough!'

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
She is beautiful and broken and she cannot see it,
She cannot see that flowers bloom when she smiles.
The sweetness that leeks from her every pour, the selflessness of her open outstretched palms
She does not see these things.

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
Her face is cracked. Crooked.
And I wonder when did we become so invested in reinventing ourselves
That we forgot who were along the way?
'You are enough' I tell her.

There is a girl staring at me in the mirror.
'You are enough!' I tell her.

- Shani