I stand still and silent in front of my bathroom mirror
I drink in the curves and edges that my face bears I see slightly crooked teeth and too thin of lips
An angry pimple on my chin and a nose with a bridge that oddly dips.

I see hair that limply hangs around my face, the ends, like crumbling leaves, lie dead
(and does it always look like that from the back of my head?)
And blaring through it all, where they say the soul lies
I see, staring back at me, dark brown eyes.

Did you know my sister’s eyes are a deep hazel-green?
Or that my best friend’s hair is a river, its surface glistening?
well, when comparison is the soundtrack of your mind and jealousy is the instrument that plays,
What others have that you seem to lack sets your gasoline-doused brain ablaze.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to be hateful
My pride is infected but I cast it on the table,
I try to stem the stream of maddening music
With antidotes of stupid quotes, like that one, how does it go?
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
My anger does not welcome comfort, it lets those words die
under the piercing scrutiny of my dark brown eyes.

But, in that mirror, I stop, and take a closer look
Because maybe I can find beauty in the face that criticism overtook
After all, jealousy can dunk any mind into its icy sea
But ugliness is in the person that lets it claw at the soul and strip humanity.

And if it’s true, what they say about our eyes
That they are the windows to where our souls thrive
Then I will make sure my dark brown window panes
keep their warmth, and glow like embers beneath orange flames
And despite all that I envy, for all that I lack,
I will not let jealousy turn that dark brown to black.