Ana

He tells her that she’s beautiful, but the mirror says anything but.

The girls in magazines are sarcastic and cruel.

But they’re skinny.

And she wants to be a model, but she just needs to hear she’s beautiful.

And so she has to be skinny, too.

She stopped eating, and then she stopped feeling.

And nobody noticed how

Her eyes turned from blue to black

Like an ocean oil spill

Her smile turned to a paper mask

Ripped halfway off

Her fingers, arms, and legs all turned to bone

White, lifeless. 

But skinny.

She just wanted her stomach to be as empty as she felt.