09/10/2026
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ | โTicket to an Empty Mirageโ
I have never felt so sick looking into the mirror.
The glass has completely given up the symmetry; it has now shattered into a geometric puzzle. It reflects a midnight carnival that breathes without a chest, spinning a carousel of absolute, spiraling chaos.
My face is no longer human but a melting caricature trapped beneath a heavy, porcelain mask of forced joy that has fused with my cheekbones.
I stare into the cracked, weeping reflection and whisper to the entities lurking in the silver liningโI am the epitome of an underrated art. I am a tragedy disguised as a punchline, painting my own blood into a bright, theatrical grin.
Yet, the agonizing weight of this grinning mask cannot compare to the true, gravity-defying burden rotting underneath the terrifying vertigo of no longer knowing whatโor whoโyou want to be anymore.
Itโs as if the carnival lights bleed into the shadows and the applause decays into dead silence as I was left staring at a stranger whose eyes are hollow entryways to a mocking hall of mirrors.
I claw at the greasepaint to find my true flesh, but the foundation runs down into my veins, burying the version of myself that existed before the performance could even begin, for I am nothing but an inheritance of expectations.
I guess this is the horror that lies beneath itโto look into your own eyes and realize your identity has completely dissolved into the background noise of the midway. I see my reflection as an ocean of black ink and the person I used to be is drowning somewhere on the surface.
Sadly, I have become a hollow prop in a play I never auditioned for, a nameless, shifting entity shaped entirely by the heavy gaze of an invisible crowd.
To everyone else, I am everything until the curtains fall.
When the showโs over,
in my very own irises,
I am an empty costume slouched in a chair,
being absolutely nothing.
Written by Enah Lei Bohulano, Staff Writer
Layout by Mark Kevin Serinas, Layout Artist
