The mirror hacked up her image,
Eyes, teeth, skin,
slapped her with it
and watched it drip down
the cottage cheese rolls
of her body.
Disgusted, she could feel
the chunks of undigested disgrace –
find their way – around her frame,
sliding and turning
like cars driving over
fat hills, till they hit
the floor.
She knew the truth of the reflection:
that this plate of glass
would be the only
thing to look at her.
Was she beautiful?
Her mother told her yes,
but then again her mother
wasn’t swollen from failure
and the hour
missed at the gym.
Maybe the mirror lies,
jealous of her petite frame,
displeased with its own.
But that would mean
she was beautiful.
And that could not be true.
Because she could still smell
the sour vomit,
the tickling, unwanted – flesh that hung
like soaked cotton
on her arms. –
It began to dry,
a permanent reminder of
imperfection, stuck
and crusted to every
part of her that
she wished
to destroy.
A door opened behind her,
the girl: drenched in the vomit
of her own creation,
lost in the mirror.
Her mother:
watching a skeleton – cry
its bones trapped
and pushing through, stretching
the skin that jailed them inside. –
Vomit slipped down
its frame, no curves or ridges
to slow it down.
The skeleton stood,
crying tears of failure;
of the things only she could see.
And the mother watched,
crying tears of failure;
wondering what she could
have done.
And the mirror spoke to them both:
Was she beautiful?
‘No, no.’​
The Mirror Magazine 