What I Had Become – A Poem

When the New Year began,

I looked into the mirror.

I saw a reflection of myself

from long ago. I was

lying on a bed, weak,

my whole world changed.

I watched as my reflection

lifted a hand and beckoned to me.

“Come on.”

He said.

I touched a hand to the glass

and it was as if

there was no glass there.

The veil between the present

and the past was thin.

I stepped through the mirror

and found myself in a place

that I remembered but fought

so hard to forget.

It was dark and there was only

one small light in the room.

Even so, by that light I saw

who I used to be lying

on the bed, my past self,

my other self. He regarded me,

and I looked at him.

I remembered that day,

how the night before the New Year

my life had changed forever,

never to be the same again.

I knew just how he was feeling

as I had been him, he had been me.

He was weak and disoriented,

unable to walk very well at all,

his whole world seeming to

move around him, unable to keep still.

He regarded me with tired eyes,

the fear in them so total.

He knew that something was wrong.

“You forgot about me.”

He said.

“You forgot our anniversary.”

It was true. I had forgotten.

Every year since that day,

I always wondered if this

would be the year that it happened,

the year where I lost control

of my body once more.

For a while, I lived in fear

of December 31^st, of who I had been

and of what I had become on that day.

“I’m sorry.”

I said.

“I did forget. I did forget you.”

“Why?”

He asked.

“Because I left you behind. Because I’m so much stronger now. So much happier.”

He regarded me with a blank expression,

the fear increasing in his eyes until

they were full of tears.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m so afraid.”

“I know.”

I said kindly.

I sat on the bed beside him and took his hand

in my own. It was cool and sweaty and

I remembered how warm I’d been,

how nothing had felt right,

and how my own body had turned against me.

“You’ll have to be strong.”

I said.

“There is a lot more pain coming, but you’ll have to be stronger than you’ve ever been. Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t know how.”

“You don’t, but you’ll learn. There will come a moment when you’ll want to quit, where you’ll want to give up and head towards the darkness. But I promise you, good times are coming.”

He looked at me with such

an open expression, one of yearning

for something better. I remembered

wearing that look, wishing and hoping

so fiercely that it was painful.

“Okay.”

He said.

“Okay.”

I heard my partner calling me from

the other side of the mirror,

his deep voice making the liquid glass

move in ripples. I took one last look

at who I used to be and patted his hand,

leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead.

“I have to go now.”

“I know you do. Don’t forget me, okay?”

“I won’t, I promise.”

With that, I stood and moved towards the glass.

When I stepped through the glass,

I left behind what I had been

and into what I had

become.