Her fingers shake, bringing the rusted razor-blade wobbling to her skin
in zig-zag lines.
Her tears speed down her face like shooting streak down skies,
the same stars she used to wish upon as a little girl,
"Please, make me pretty", "Please, make me beautiful".

This girl has long abandoned the love for her body
and as she slices that soft thin epidermis, she gasps.

Long ago forgetting that she is beautiful,
she wishes for the days when wearing pink socks and long braids
where the only requirements for being complimented
You see, she’s only 16,
but she sums herself up by the number of cat-calls she receives from the boys,
how many smiles she is given,
and how many times the words "pretty" and "sexy"
are in the same sentence as her name.
On the days she doesn't get enough,
she feels disgusting,
so she cuts.

For every time her mother confronts her at the dinner table,
asking if she knows how many calories she just shoved down her throat,
she cuts.

For every time her boyfriend playfully pinches her back and says
"Mira estas longhas. You could hide treasure in these jelly rolls",
she cuts.

Because she longs to look like those women in
her TV screen, her favorite movies, and her magazine covers.
How could Vogue, seventeen, and Allure magazines be wrong?
She forgets that if she would only look,
open her eyes to the world around her and not only focus on the stars,
she would realize that every girl here
does not match the stick-like figures that walk runways.

Realize, that the media is feeding her lies of what the perfect woman looks like.
Trading in knobby knees, crooked noses, and chubby waistlines for the opinions of
doctors with pockets too deep to tell truths,
leaving bank accounts empty like these girls hearts
once they realize that that first surgery wasn't enough, That THEY are not enough.

Maybe if she knew this, she would understand that even the girls she so longs to be like
are haunted by the same problems:
Anorexics, Bulimics, Exercise junkies, Cutters.

If the average pants size for women in America is 16,
then why do they only show these girls size 0 models?

Women who have taken the word beautiful
away from the mother, who wakes up at the crack of dawn to make her children breakfast;
from the lawyer, who didn't have to sleep with her boss to get her first case;
from the daughter, who does not feel like she must slip herself into that little black dress
just to feel sexy.

These women are all perfect,
but she forgets this,
and so she cuts.

Because if she cannot have legs that stretch like long willows,
breasts that leave men’s eyes struggling past neck lines,
if she cannot fit herself into a size 0,
she must hate herself, starve herself,
and cut herself
into the very image America has shoved down her throat
since she was old enough to wish on shooting stars.

And deep down inside,
she wonders,
if she will ever be able to look at herself in the mirror
and tell herself
"You, you are so...beautiful."