The girl woke up. Her alarm clock was blaring signifying that the day had begun. She looked out her window just in time to see the sun begin to rise coating the sky with a beautiful yellow tint. The wind whispered outside, sharing all its deepest secrets with the lonely girl, a friend she could confine in.The birds chirped softly, as she dragged herself out of bed as she had done countless times beforehand. Her body was weak and her mind was foggy. She desperately wished she could crawl back into her soft and cozy bed and sleep forever, as she would never have to relive those awful memories every time she closed her eyes, even if it was just for a minute, even a mere second of silence from the demons that tormented her would suffice. But she knew this wasn't an option and it never was one. So she continued and put on a brave face and a beautiful smile like she didn't have a care in the world, that is until she looked in the mirror. 

She stood and looked at herself in the dirty mirror picking out each and every flaw. Each was a reason she was not good enough; her eyes were too dull, her cheeks too hollow, her skin was too lifeless, and her heart seemed too broken to be fixed. She sat and tore herself apart piece by piece until she was left with nothing but a shell of the person she was before. Much like a flower, she was once flourishing and beautiful but over time she withered and fell apart. Slowly dying from the inside out.

As she quickly dressed herself in her tattered blue jeans and oversized shirt she looked at herself once again in the mirror only to see the distorted image of what she used to be, again. This caused her to just stop and think, a dangerous thing to do with a mindset like hers. She sat thinking about all the feelings and thoughts she pushed down day after day. The trauma she tried so hard to erase. She just wanted an escape. 

These thoughts came crashing down on her all at once like a tidal wave and before she could even react she was being pulled under. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. She was drowning. She was dying. The enormous walls she had spent years building are crushed in mere seconds by the pressure from the waves but before long the waves receded back to the depths of the ocean, like they were never there to begin with. But the thoughts and feelings that crept in while the walls were down, were like cancer. They made themselves present, then started eating away at her hope, her happiness, at everything that made her herself, destroying the person she once was. It was killing her. This girl was lost with no one to guide her. Her soul was tired. Her mind was at war with itself. Her body was slowing withering away. She was fighting a losing battle. 

She couldn’t dwell on these feelings and emotions though because her day was busy and she had no time for such nonsense, at least that’s what people told her. So she put her notebooks and pencils in her backpack and mentally prepared herself for another day. Another day she had to act like the perfect princess that her parents thought she was. The golden child with straight A’s and perfect attendance, not a single hair on her head could be out of place. 

The girl skips breakfast. After all, she needs to live up to the expectations people have put on her, even if that means she's starving herself because she’d rather be in pain than be alone but she’d never admitted that to anyone. If you looked at her long enough you could tell something was off about her.  One gaze into her beautiful green eyes and you could tell all her secrets, everything she tries so desperately to hide is so easy to spot. After all the eyes are the window to one's soul. Her mother and father were so busy and overworked that they never even noticed, it's like they had blinds covering their eyes so they could only see what they wanted to see. 

She got in the back of her mom's grey Toyota and readied herself for one of her mother’s infamous lectures that she got daily. Today’s would be about how she had been staying up far too late on school nights. She would just lay awake for hours at night, overthinking, replaying those moments in her head over and over again, till she would eventually drift off into a restless sleep. She soon found out that nowhere was safe, as her demons followed her into her dreams, into the place that was once her safe space. The girl couldn’t tell her mother this is why she never slept so  she sat through her mom’s fifteen-minute lecture in silence without the blink of an eye. Her mother dropped her off at the grocery store near the school like she did every day and gave her a kiss on the cheek goodbye then drove away. The girl turned her music up and began her journey to school. The walk was quiet and calming. It was a beautiful day, there was a small breeze and some clouds in the bright blue sky. As the distance to the school lessened with each passing step her anxiety grew. She knew she would see her friends soon and she was afraid that she didn't have what it took to look them in the eyes and act like everything was perfect, like she was perfect. 

The building she and her friends met in every morning was just feet away from her at this point and she made the decision to walk into the giant metal double doors and greet her friends with hugs and a huge smile because she knew that's what they needed to get through their day, even if it broke her to do so. 

She went though her school day unfazed by her surroundings, her mind was blank of all thought. The facade she wore was slowly fading as the end of the day neared and she began to grow weary of going back home. School allowed her an escape from her thoughts, an escape from reality, so everyday when the clock hit 2:17 she knew what was to come. She knew once she got home all she would no longer have the strength to continue the that she had facade mastered so well. 

She enters her room and stares in the mirror a final time. She takes her time, analyzing ever inch of her body and taking it all in and then slowly, piece by piece, letting it all go. She realizes that the moment she learns to love living she will be whole again. She will survive.