stands in front of the full length mirror, runs her hands from her hair down her sides to the front of her thighs and sighs. She’s completely repulsed by this body, by herself. Tears well in the ducts of her eyes and she fights with everything she can to fight them back. She walks over to her dresser and removes a small journal; it’s black and bound with leather strings.
She flips through the pages until she finds the page where she’s recorded her in-take of food for the day. “Oatmeal, water and an apple”, she slams the journal closed in disgust. It’s only 12:30 and she’s already eaten all of that. She glances back at the mirror and knows what she must do. She takes a deep breath and trudges, heavily (emphasis on the heavy…in her mind at least) to the bathroom. She locks the door and turns on the shower to block out the noise.
Her mother is right down the hall and if she had any idea of what Delilah was really doing in the dungeon she called a bathroom, there would be severe consequences to pay, consequences Delilah was not willing to face.
With the shower running, she opens the medicine cabinet and retrieves her tooth-brush, but this brush would not be used to clean her beautiful teeth, this is Delilah’s sanctity, her treasure and for her, sometimes the only thing that keeps her going. Sadly, the thing that keeps her going is the thing that is slowly destroying her. She makes her way to the toilet and coils herself around the base and so begins her daily routine. If only she could manage to do this once a day. Maybe then the sting that constantly singe in her throat and on her tongue might dissipate.

After she’s finished, she makes her way to the warm shower that is awaiting her. She turns the heat all the way up and lets the burning water run over her shaking body. Eyes closed she lets the tears begin to fall, her hands tremble as she tries to push her hair out of her face. Slowly, she slides down the edge of the bath and presses her forehead to her knees and lets the sobbing presume.

She slowly walks back into her room and once again takes her stance in front of her mirror. She lets her towel drop to the floor as she examines her body. Skin beat-red from the heat of the shower, she begins tracing her hands across her shoulders, down her hips and stomach, and again to her thighs. If only that shower was enough to melt all of this away, maybe then she’d be like all the girls on those magazines and she could be happy, they always look so happy.

That’s all she really wants, is to be happy, with herself, to be accepted by everyone and to feel beautiful. Sadly, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to become that size one, to attain that “perfect body”. Even if that means shoving a tooth-brush down her throat multiple times a day, after every meal, and sometimes just to make sure there’s nothing left for her body to hold on to and possibly turn to fat. Binge and purge, binge and purge, binge and purge. This was literally consuming her life.

If she could only see what true beauty she possessed. If she realized that you don’t have to be a size 0 or to “beautiful, hot, or sexy”. That a girl that is a size 14 is just as capable of dating that hot guy she sees in the hallway every day, as easily as a girl that’s barely there. Society has made it completely impossible for girls to feel beautiful and confident in themselves unless they are the size of a tooth-pick, if not less. It’s repulsive and heart-breaking to watch girls destroy themselves just so they can feel accepted by this sick society. How are we ever supposed to truly, “fit in” if that size gaps just continues to decrease.