The Ghost in My Mirror

The Ghost in My Mirror

By [Huzaifa dzine]

Every morning, I see her.

She stands just behind the foggy sheen of the mirror, where my reflection should be. Her eyes mimic mine, but they are older somehow—haunted. Her skin carries the same freckles I have, but they’ve turned pale like faded ink. Her shoulders slump with a weight I never agreed to carry. Still, she waits there every day, wordless but watching, as I splash water onto my face and pretend not to notice.

Sometimes, I catch her smiling.

It’s not a kind smile. It’s the crooked kind that feels like a warning. Like she knows things about me I haven’t admitted yet.

I used to think she was a dream, a leftover figment from one of my darker nights, the ones where sleep was more like a slow drowning. But she never left. She’s part of my morning routine now—brush teeth, wash face, avoid eye contact with the ghost in the mirror.

I write poetry, but she edits it in silence.

I’ll read aloud a line like:

“I am stronger than my shadows.”

And I’ll see her tilt her head like she’s amused.

She knows that I skipped lunch again yesterday, not for discipline but because I felt I didn’t deserve to eat.

I write:

“I have forgiven myself.”

She rolls her eyes. She knows I still rehearse apologies to people who forgot my name years ago. She knows my guilt is a daily ritual—prayers I say to a god who only looks like shame.

Some days, she speaks.

Not in words, but in echoes.

"Why are you still pretending?"

She whispers from the corners of the mirror, and I pretend it’s just the wind, or maybe the fan.

I was thirteen when I first saw her.

The mirror had caught me mid-panic, tracing the curve of my body with loathing. I'd cried that day, mascara smudged like bruises under my eyes. That was the first time she smiled. Not out of cruelty—but recognition. She had been waiting for me.

Every insecurity, every tiny self-inflicted wound, she collected like tokens. A therapist once told me, “You have to face your inner critic.”

But no one told me my critic had a face, a voice, and lived behind glass.

I tried covering the mirror.

Blankets. Towels. Even motivational sticky notes with phrases like:

“You are enough.”

“You are not your mistakes.”

But she still got through.

Sometimes I’d wake up and find the cloth on the floor, her face faint in the silver surface, grinning at the effort. Like she wanted me to know: she lives in me. Not just in glass.

Still, we’ve come to an understanding.

I don’t lie to her anymore.

Not about how I’m doing. Not about the nights I cry without knowing why. Not about the mornings I feel like I’m borrowing this body from someone who deserved it more.

I say:

“I hate you.”

She says nothing.

I say:

“I know you’re me.”

And for a moment, her eyes soften. She nods.

Sometimes, I wonder if she wants to be free too.

Because when I speak kindly to myself—even if I don’t believe it—she flickers, just a bit. Her form becomes more translucent, as if each small act of grace makes her grip weaker.

One morning, I looked in the mirror and said:

“You don’t own me.”

She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown.

She simply nodded… and faded, just slightly, like mist evaporating from glass.

So I write again.

But now, I leave space for truth.

For the ugly parts. For the cracks. For the days the ghost wins.

And the days I win too.

I don’t think she’ll ever leave completely.

Maybe she’s not meant to.

Maybe we all have ghosts.

Not the kind that go boo in the night—but the kind that stare back at us, wearing our skin, mouthing our doubts.

The kind we made ourselves, out of pain, shame, and repetition.

But maybe—just maybe—she isn’t here to haunt me.

Maybe she’s here to remind me I’m still healing.

And healing, after all, isn’t about becoming a new person.

It’s about learning to live with the ghost in the mirror—

without letting her speak for me anymore.