Work Text:
Reflection
A letter from me to you
I look at what was once called my reflection, but I don’t see myself there in the mirror, in the water, in the broken glass, wherever I am. All I see is a man with empty eyes, eyes someone used to tell me were full of stars. I don’t know where those stars are now. Maybe they’re lost in my reflection, whoever it is now.
This reflection is not mine. It can’t be. I’m not me, not anymore, not without that missing piece, and that reflection can’t be me until that piece is put back. But when I lost that piece, I knew I was never going to get it back. That’s not something that happens.
You can’t bring back people from the dead.
Yes, my reflection is complete if a person stands beside me, and that person is you. And you’re gone. So far gone. The world around me, it feels like they’ve all forgotten you, and that’s my fault. You don’t have a gravestone. You never had a funeral. I won’t even admit you’re dead.
Well.
I guess I’m admitting it here.
But outside of this letter? I haven’t admitted it to anyone and I’ll never be able to, even though I know you’re gone and never coming back. My reflection doesn’t show you beside me, and so it’s not my reflection anymore, and so I am not me. And I can’t accept that, that loss of myself, that loss of us. Life isn’t complete anymore. I’m not complete.
And so I, with my lost reflection, have dishonored your memory. All these years later, I have neglected to provide the burial you deserve. I have not given either of us closure. I have not ensured the world will remember you. There was no service, no procession, no flowers.
Because I’d have to face reality to get those things for you.
So my love, I am sorry, more deeply sorry than I have ever been about anything. I can’t let you go. I don’t know how, and I’ve already lost so much that I can’t bear to lose anything more.
Please.
Forgive me.
I must hold onto the lie that you still live. I must hold onto the lie that I did not find your shield, burned and broken. I must hold onto the lie that I never heard tales of your final stand. You were a great warrior, but I must withhold your honor. I cannot send you off into the mighty halls of the gods.
I must pretend you are still here beside me, looking back at me from this mirror, this water, this broken glass, a beautiful part of my reflection.