I stood there in my bathroom, looking in the mirror. I could see behind me that d*mned scale that had caused me so much pain. I could see the toilet that I’d gagged myself in front of so many times. I could see the bathtub I slept in when I felt like being cold wasn’t worse than being unloved. I could see a hamper full of clothes that didn’t fit me anymore. But of all these things I could see clear as day, black and white, plain and simple… there was something I think I may never see clearly ever again. Have you ever been looking for something, like your wallet or cellphone, and you’re looking so hard, trying so hard to find it when it’s right there in front of you? Its sitting right there on your dresser and you would swear on your dead cat that it was not there. You just couldn’t see it for the life of you? Have you been there? Because that is what it feels like looking in that mirror.
No matter how hard I try I can’t see myself in that mirror.

I see a girl about five feet seven, dark hair tumbling past her shoulders. She’s got dark eyes and olive color skin. Her eyes are sunken in and she has bags under her eyes. She’s shivering like a Chihuahua, and you can see her ribs poking through her skin. She looks so tired and so afraid. She looks lonely. I don’t know her. How can I? She doesn’t even know herself.
A voice whispers in the back of my mind, “But at least she’s skinny. At least she’s thin. At least she will never be humiliated in the dressing room at the mall because she’s not small enough to fit in the clothes. At least society would call her beautiful.”

I say to the girl in the mirror, “You are not beautiful. You are not real.”

The girl says back, “You wanted this, Holly. Remember? Remember how they didn’t have any size 9 dresses? Remember how size 6 was still too fat? DON’T YOU REMEMBER?”

“Yes,” I admit. “Size 6 is fat. But at least it’s feasible. At least there is a lot of size sixes out there!” Tears run down my face. I can barely feel them.

The girl snorts. “There is a lot of size 16’s too, Holly. Do you want to be a size 16? Hm? You wanna be fat? You want to have sex gods like Milo Rossi tell you that they went out with you as a favor? You want them to make you cry like a child because they let you in on a well-known fact that you are a fat cow? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?” she yells. “IS IT?”

My throat feels clogged up. “N-no, it isn’t. It’s not what I want, but if I could be anyone, I’d be the fat cow. Because you are not beautiful. You are not real. You are not real. You are not real. YOU ARE NOT REAL!” I scream on the top of my lungs.

“Then why do you want to be me?” she asks.
That was all I could take. I punch with all my strength, which isn’t much these days, at the mirror. It shatters, sending shards flying. I fall to the ground, shards of glass in my still clenched fist, and I continue to cry. At some point, someone rushes in and tries to help me, but I don’t want to move. I’m pretty sure I tell them to let me die. I hear someone calling an ambulance and starting to cry. I want to care. I really do. But all I do is lay there on shards of glass in my homecoming dress, bleeding. Then I close my eyes so I can fall asleep.
At least in my dreams, I’m beautiful.