Snow Brown | Teen Ink

Snow Brown

January 31, 2021
By ekta_anand BRONZE, Alpharetta, Georgia
ekta_anand BRONZE, Alpharetta, Georgia
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I have a conversation with myself every night

Nothing too deep, whimsical, spiritual

Nothing any 16 soon to 17 year old 

In a suburban neighborhood who

Walks the walk, talks the talk,

And lives the public school life

Would have.


It’s from the neck up

I made that decision some time ago

When the conversations would get too

Long, too

Miserable, as if I was suffocating in the utter exhalation

Of hate and evil

And so I left the torso and extremities for

Earlier in the day,

Where the glistening sunlight and cheery chirps would,

I hoped, 

Filter the flaws


But when the window turned black, 

The mirror did not lie

It poured out the god-awful truth, and I

I had no choice but to listen

Accepting the criticism, the comparison, the cruelty

It was more of a one-sided conversation, really


My reflection points to my skin, it’s bumps and spots

I don’t reply

My reflection taunts my uneven eyebrows, lopsided nose

I silently assent because, she had a good point

Angered by my silence, my reflection rages on, 

Pinching my cheeks, poking my chin, attacking the blotches, and blemishes

Picking apart my face

Picking apart my adolescence

Until all that is left are two eyeballs, staring back at me


Tears would well up an disappear

They had nowhere to go


And I would proceed with my nightly routine

The pain numbed away, and 

All that was left 

Was a blank stare

Looking back at the unfairest of them all. 


The author's comments:

I wrote this piece during a time of really low self-confidence. I had a really bad relationship with myself, and the mirror symbolizes how I viewed myself. There are a lot of teenage girls that feel this way, that feel like they are not enough just because they don't look a certain way. And I hope this piece brings this issue to light, and shows the experience of excessive self-critique. 


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