I have no mirrors in my flat.
Simply put, I can't abide my own reflection. The planes of my face, my striding silhouette, the shadow cast as my figure slinks out of a picture. I don't mean some kind of pimply-faced self-loathing that passes with maturity and confidence and getting—finally—laid. I mean never wanting to see my own image again, because every line, every gesture, every feature and flaw are painful to watch.
This is the first reason I am grateful for the wound. It is proof that I am my own, that I am not him.
I could cover it, conceal it, even if it cannot heal, but I don't do this. I need it to be there. This isn't a guilt thing; I require no painful reminder to bring me back. Even with mirrors and storefronts and photographs I no longer need it. I have schooled myself to not look. I've spent a lifetime now, not looking at myself.
But I need it to be there for everyone else. I want it to be the first thing they see about me. That I am maimed, broken, incomplete. I need the wound to proclaim it for me, so I don't have to explain.
They assume that the jokes are a front, a mask, and they're right. But what they don't know is that they are also a curse, a burden I can't lay down because it was ours and there are so few things left that are.
I hear his voice, even while I'm awake, even when I am not speaking. It echoes perfectly inside the hollow drum.
I don't miss it. I'd gladly give my other ear, and both my hands and a leg to boot if it would mean anything. I'd give my body, two souls in one space. It wouldn't be so different.
But nothing, not wishing or bartering, not shutting out my shadow, not working into exhaustion, not the relentless passage of time itself, can alter the one simple bitter truth. I am less than half a man.
