Invisible woman

She looks into the mirror never seeing herself, but many different faces: a cracked kaleidoscope of flesh and features, blurring, shifting, the many masks she wears.

Stripping away the words that surround her, crumple up like leaves in her fingers and blow; away, crackling, splintered; tear away tangled shrouds of expectation to reveal the woman.
Who isn’t there.

In the stillness, in the fog of her breath, she makes out a shimmering outline yet to be filled in. The faint sketchings of shape, a susurrus in the air.

Hand me the paint brush, she says. But takes it for herself.