She stands in the mirror looking at herself, with hollowed out eyes staring back. Tears start to stream down her dry cheeks like a stain glass window pain. The tears sting but not as much as the open cuts on her thighs and wrist when they feel the touch of hot water. She wants to run away from herself, SCREAM, tear at her skin until she becomes someone new, wrap herself in blankets for months on end to one day emerge from her cocoon as someone else, someone new, someone that maybe JUST maybe could be loved. But by whom? By the boy who used her for the flower she once had to offer that he pruned years ago when they were too young to understand the consequences. He pricked her like a spindle and let her fall into an unending love for him yet he was nowhere in sight to catch her. So there she is standing in the mirror, full length, standing bare skinned and frail, bruises paint her skin as if her flesh is a canvas for Jackson Pollock to practice on. Scars riddle her thighs and arms simply because she tried to cope and thought dragging a silver blade across her once peachy soft baby pink skin would kill the pain. Instead she stains the bleach white towels with crimson. She becomes best friends with Mr. Clean. No pain is going away, only more washes over her skin. The blood drips down like rain fall; big splatters drop to the cold tile floor. She covers it all up with towels and sweaters as if nothing ever happened. She’s fine. She starts to skip meals in hopes she will become thin to the point where if the wind blows she will daintily float away; in hopes that maybe when he runs his hands down her boney frame he will touch her heart and fall in love like she once did for him. With every text he sends her he is putting more and more weight on her, more cuts, more pain and he has no care. She knows he wants only one thing from her and it’s not last night’s math homework to copy. He wants what as a woman she has to offer. He’s power hungry, selfish, greedy, in need of control and loves to use her. He a puppeteer, she his marionette.  She promises herself she will cut the strings but every time she tries he pulls them tighter and tighter, he tangles the strings and brings her back again. She stands in the mirror her eyes hollow stare back at her in a numb daze, the mirror where she used to strike a pose as a girl has now become the enemy.