She says that she can't feel it anymore, when a blade bites her flesh, when the blood falls like
her tears. When she carves her flesh with the lines of her sorrow, she doesn't taste the pain. All
she can do is watch as the blood drips slowly down. She says it doesn't bother her, not eating
when she should, watching the numbers on the scale drop day by day. She doesn't mind dying to be
thin. She wants to be like the stick figures that saunter across the runways, like being a skeleton
in skin is beautiful. She will do anything to be that kind of pretty. But when she smiles, you
don't see that. You wouldn't know that at night, she cuts, and her dinner goes uneaten. In the
morning, she covers her arms and skips breakfast. But you wouldn't know that. At school, she
laughs and is happy. But her reflection in the mirror makes her cry when she's alone. I know her
secrets, and I cry too. Because she's my friend, and she's dying. The cuts are small, the
starvation is minimal. But as I observe, it grows. And what can I do but watch? How could I tell her
what she already knows but ignores? When I'm miserable, I bleed too. I bleed tears. When I'm
unhappy with myself, I starve too. I starve because I have no happiness. But she lets her body take
the pain for her mind. She bleeds, not cries. She starves, not chokes on her own misery. Her arm is
a map of her soul malnourished, scored with ragged cuts that don't heal. And today she cried
because I care. No one else has cared before. But all I want is for her wrists to be unblemished and
her plate to be clean. Then I would smile with her and laugh and be happy. But she's addicted, and
if she goes on she'll die. I've never lost a friend before. What will I do if she dies? How will
I live with myself if I can't make her stop? All I can do is watch as the blood falls like sand in
an hourglass.