Irrationality

I have this fear that, one day, I'll turn my back to my parents, only to find that while I wasn't watching, they transformed into their true selves, two monsters staring back at me, faces identical to those I love but with eyes reflecting gleeful malice like shattering glass in a hurricane. I fear that I have placed my trust in two time bomb spiders, biding their time for years, nearly two decades, crouched in position, rubbing hairy pincers together in hungry anticipation, drooling through their fangs, weaving my infallable reliance on them until they have enough fabric to smother me, capture me, throw a dinner party. Make sure to use the good china. Forks on the left. Use red wine glasses for blood. Charming.

I can't look at mirrors when it's dark out. An irrational brain has convinced unreliable eyes that my face will melt off its bones, that who I see will gesture and blink of her own accord, that she will be the one with dagger cheekbones and hook eyes that pierce with barbs; that she will walk out of her frame, have her own reflection in that mirror. I'm torn between removing my eyes from their sockets as I run out of the bathroom, and forcing them to prove me wrong.