Who am I when no one is watching?

Every night she took the stage — the queen of a forgotten cabaret, wrapped in velvet songs and veils of smoke. Applause echoed through the hollow halls, chasing shadows away. In her shimmering blue gown and feathered hair, she was untouchable — a vision, a voice, a legend.

But the mirror knew better.

While she sang with practiced passion and waved her cigarette like a queen’s scepter, her reflection told a different story. There, behind the glass, she held not smoke, but a single red rose — vibrant, real, fragile.

A memory, a longing, perhaps a secret never spoken aloud.

The audience saw a diva.

The world saw a star.

But the mirror saw the one thing she could never show:

The dream she sang for.

The love she had lost.

The self she had forgotten.

And every night, before the first note left her lips, she caught her own eyes in the glass — and wondered, just for a heartbeat:

Who am I when no one is watching?