I found this prompt online. What if your mirror started talking to you? What might the mirror say?
Okay, what would it say?
Ruff. Dude, you look…
That COVID beard. You and everybody else who never cared. Rolling out of the house looking like you’ve been on a weekend bender. Scruff down your neck and into your shirt. Full head of finger-scraped hair. You ought to be ashamed.
Saggy rags. Do you own anything that isn’t cheap?
Black misshapen sweatshirt, half price. Black winter coat, dusty, not dusty – ashy, in need of a rough and tumble in a washing machine. Forty-percent off in a clearance sale.
Baggy black jeans. Seen better days. Hanging off you like loose skin, like you put on your big brother’s pants by mistake. It won’t do. Yes, you have lost enough weight for your pants to stop fitting and your belt to be two sizes too big. Yay for you and all of that, and I’m sure it feels good, but, maybe, when the thrill is fully gone, of course, MAYBE it’s time for you to dig around in the couch to find enough money to get some new jeans. And a new belt. Something sturdier than the cheap imitation leather affair you’ve been sipping through your belt loops for the past three years. Belts aren’t supposed to fold like cardboard.
The hiking boots are new, though, so… Win?
But, the whole things a waste if your stomach is still jutting out like that. Is it bloat? Just asking. And just saying. A few sit-ups EACH AND EVERY SINGLE DAY day would flatten that tummy out a bit. It won’t bring anyone to the yard, mind you, because that ship has run away. But you will start looking look like you’ve lost weight.
COVID crisis, pandemic isn’t going to last forever. And when it ends, what are you going to do? You’re gonna have to stop looking like you been through it and back – soon.
You look wild, dude. What happened to you? Who’s been after you? How did she put it in that movie, The Spanish Prisoner“? “My troika was pursued by wolves.” That’s how you look, dude. Get it together.
Photo by Drigo Diniz from Pexels
Mark Earnest Johnson 