I was 7 years old the first time I saw myself.
The day was ordinary enough, only changed by the fact that I finally acknowledged the thing I saw staring back at me in my parents vanity mirror.
The tousled curls of a fledgling whoโs flight feathers are just poking through its skin.
The small mouth and teeth of a deer, and dappled freckled skin in the same sense.
The eyes that stared back into me, intense, shocking. Cold like ice, and just as beautiful in the light.
I am no narcissus. But days come by where I stare at them in the closet mirrors against my bed.
Inspecting and perfecting the face I call my own, the one I say is so familiar to me.
The hair is long, dropped against my head like willow branches in the heat of summer.
The face and mouth are leaner, the teeth sharper - no longer a timid deer, but something sharper, hungrier.
All that seems the same are the eyes. Still staring, still searching. Still strange in a familiar way.