saturday night

it starts with the simplest idea.

a single thought, and something about a saturday evening movie marathon coaxes it out; strokes its nose until it inches from behind that wall built up between self preservation and the rest of a girl's mind.

she feels unreal, like the lines between contrivance and reality have finally blurred and that woman she is trying so desperately to be is being taken over by the girl she really is.

it is egged on, that tiny, tiny thought, by the downstairs bathroom. dark green walls and bad lighting force out of her skin a glow like burning sugar and give depth to the wells underneath the eyes until they start to grow visibly. in that mirror, some mornings she is bright eyed and dewy, but tonight there is something feral, and something trapped hiding back there. she does not feel the way her reflection tells her she feels, and that is frightening.

that little thought, it explodes, sending burning shrapnel through the entirety of current affairs and makes everything seem just a little smaller.

for a minute or two, she honestly believes that she only exists when she is standing in front of a reflective surface.

no threat, no matter how barbaric, could make her contemplate the actuality behind that conviction. nothing could make her sit down and consider what it is, precisely, that sucked on that idea until it glowed with life like a cigarette.

just one little thought. it's there all night. it culminates and she finds herself lying in a ball on the cold kitchen floor, sobbing and shrieking while the dog whimpers and tries pawing, licking, biting at her forearms to get her to stand up, stop covering her face.

she falls asleep on the couch completely drained and runs and hides at the first sound of other humans in the house. in the morning those shadows under her eyes are only mascara, black eyeliner and too much sleep, but she treads warily through the downstairs and does not look in the mirror while washing her hands.