I feel like I know you, but I don’t. I stare at you, and you stare back, both our eyes vivid and alive with curiosity. We reach out, as if to touch each other, but retract our hands at the exact, same time. Something is keeping us apart.

I didn’t understand, at first. I saw you, in your entirety, but I couldn’t touch you. We were blocked from each other by a solid, rock hard but reflective surface.

My sight seemed to be the only one of my senses working. I couldn’t feel or smell you. I didn’t know where you were, perhaps in a dream? Or were you trapped and locked someplace, someplace where nobody will ever know you again?

But, still, you see. You touch your hair the same time I do, running your fingers through it. You touch your lips, your face. You’re mimicking me. I step back at the same time you step back. It’s fun, and confusing for awhile, but then it hits me.

You and I, we’re the same person. The only difference is you’re in there and I’m out here. You are locked up and trapped; you will never get out of the mirror. You and I will never know each other, never again. You are still stuck in a mentally ill, infectious state and need to be quarantined from the rest of society. I, on the other hand, am finally free.

We are the same person, but we still differ. Once upon a time we were one body, one mind, trapped together inside the mirror. It was me who broke away, finding the light, the way out.

And then I locked it, trapping you in. I split us in half, keeping the bad inside and letting the good, new and improved me out into the world.

So maybe it’s not fair to say we’re the same. You no longer exist. It’s like I killed you when I freed myself. Sure, we look exactly alike, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can copy my physical movements, but you can’t copy my mind. By dropping you, from exiling you from the universe, I dropped the weight I’d been carrying, and I learned to fly.