Roxy's Reflection

She’s a star made of cleavage, curls, and sparkles. Roxy deserves for you to be her number one fan. Roxy sets the whole world as her stage and performs her best scene on it. Roxy wears no red makeup, though if she did, she would make her lip print on her mirror like she left one on my heart.

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When I dance, I think about Roxy. I know Roxy thinks about herself when she dances. Because I was just a thin ballet apprentice when I first Roxy, walking awkwardly in a body that didn’t fit into a showgirl dressing room unless shoved in a corner. They all judged me from bleeding toes to inexperienced fingers.

I was left alone and tried to melt into the only corner of darkness the fluorescent vanity lights didn’t touch. I was a girl dancer, I still am. These woman dancers intimidated me.

Roxy walked up to me. I didn’t know she was Roxy at the time until she signed her name on the mirror with sparkling black eyeliner.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she demanded out of pure interest in satiating her curiosity, not in making me comfortable.

“Charmmaine.”

Roxy nodded and seemed to try to digest my name like a disgusting French food she was tasting for the first time. She decided it was too prestigious, but swallowed it politely.

“Well Charmmaine, look at yourself.”

I hesitantly turned to the mirror behind me. I didn’t look at myself, I looked at Roxy’s reflection. Tight brown and blond curls framed a perfectly cut case, a short silver dress contrasted tan skin and hugged perfect curves. She was everything a woman should be. I was scared.

She caught me looking at her and looked at me without amusement. I couldn’t stand looking at myself after looking at something as perfect as Roxy, but I did anyways. Everything was thin and straight, like a boring board in my studio. Tonight, I was just a piece of the night sky when around these stars.

“Do you love yourself?”

"Ummm…”

There was very little that amused Roxy. She looked at me sideways.

“Don’t expect people to love you just because you can dance. You have to love yourself”

She pressed her body to the mirror, pouted her lips in an irresistible way I wish I could emulate and kissed herself on the lips. She seemed to love herself. If her reflection had a tongue, she would’ve licked it with her own.

She signed her name on the mirror. Roxy, with a long tail at the end of her “y”. And walked away to leave me and my reflection to a moment that needed more privacy than her own showy moment.

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I’ll kiss many mirrors after that, but that’s all they are to me. When Roxy kisses mirrors, she kisses herself. When I kiss mirrors, I kiss strangers that don’t love me.

Sometimes I pretend I’m Roxy and really love myself. I can look in the mirror and pretend I have more than I was given. I pout and sulk in the sexiest ways. I wink and raise my eyebrows. I dance without worry. Then I remember I’m not Roxy.

Someday I'll learn to love Charmmaine.