I knew I was undead when I looked in the mirror and saw that my skin was bare. When I ran my fingers down my smooth, soft cheek, and felt no cuts, no wrinkles, no blemishes. Not a flaw to be felt, not a sign to be seen that life had made its mark. 

I was undeniably beautiful. My eyes were round and dark, limbs long and lean, and hair a mosaic of colours cascading down my spine. I spent a lot of my time perfecting my portrait, trying new hair or makeup styles, looking for ones that made me look striking–– that made me look noticeable. I was both like a painting, and like the artist; building my beauty with the delicate strokes of a paintbrush. I kept my painting well cared for, sheltered from the elements, and shielded from the cruelties of a selfish world.

I lived alone, in a four walled room with nothing but a bed, a desk, and a mirror. I spent my days dreaming, and my nights writing. The work that emerged from my restless brain was art. With my words, I sculpted worlds filled with starlight and sunlight and moonlight. With love and pain and joy and misery. All things I had yet to experience—but all things I spoke of with the wisdom of a thousand lives, lead and lost. 

Occasionally, I turned on my television and saw fleeting images of those outside. At this, I always scoffed. Their ‘experiences’ were an illusion, but the creativity that flowed from my soul was eternal. It would enter the world with force and significance, making change that would live on forever. It was infinite. It was great. It succeeded all of them and all that they would ever have to offer.

I told myself this over and over again, the way one tells a lie when they are desperate for it to be true. But I quickly learned that despite how much you surround yourself with lies written on walls (which many a time, I took a pencil and did), your heart will always beat the language of truth. And then I would cry. In a room full of lying art and artful lies, I cried for the sake of the truth: that I was not alive. I was a carefully preserved specimen in a cage waiting to be released. I pounded on the walls and begged for freedom, for the clock by the door was ticking, and I was trapped; suffocating, and beautiful, and stuck. 

The way I saw my life was this:

I wake: four walls.

I sleep: four walls.

I live: four walls.

I die: four walls.

The door was unlocked, but I knew not how to use it. 

Eventually I would calm, write a song about my sadness, and return to my routine. Time continued to pass and I spent it gazing in the mirror. I marvelled at my beauty, and I sobbed over the purity of my spirit. I wanted scars, and I wanted scrapes, and I wanted it all. But I couldn’t stand to look in my mirror and risk one day seeing a monster staring back at me. 

So I continued my life this way: gazing and dreaming, writing and crying. My life, if you could call it such, was one that was easy, simple and perfect.

But I was never alive—not really. My heart pumped and my blood flowed, but I never lived. I was only ever undead.