Shattered

Shattered

The studio is vacant, but for myself and the sun’s bright beams bouncing off me. The dancer walks in clad in purest white to bask in the glow of her youth. If only she could see how beautiful she really is, how angelic her innocent face is.

She prances across the floor to the CD player and after she presses a few buttons, Bach engulfs the room with subtle frustration, perhaps a bit of anger, and I know that today has been another day of starvation. She looks at me and holds her glare while she slowly begins to approach me. I watch her fragile body take one frail step at a time. If only I could reach out and help her walk, but I can’t. I cannot bear to touch her knowing that I am to blame for the damaged soul I see before me. How do I fix this? How can I repair her and her body?

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall… be honest with me. We both know I could never be the fairest of them all,” she says while leaning against me. Her breath reeks of alcohol and her prematurely aged face is streaked with tears, yet she continues to illuminate the room.

“I mean look at these unsightly bulges,” she steps back to show me how fat she is. I see her tugging at emaciated folds of skin, yet she probably sees rolls of non-existent cellulite.

She sits down in front of me and crosses her skinny legs. Her stick-like fingers trail delicately across her arm. The skin is blotched and her once radiant complexion is uneven. However, she is still so beautiful to me. If only I could make her see what I see, my perception of the graceful girl cannot be blurred by the broken image I see before me now. She enfolds her neck with her fingers and gasps desperately for air.

“I can’t breathe,” she whispers to me.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” I plead with her, “you can survive this, please, don’t give up.”

As she stands up, the pitch of the music seems to increase. Frustration has now turned into intense melancholy. She walks up to me, stares blankly at me for a while, then tenderly...