1 SELF-IMPROVEMENT
POETRY
Kristina Morgan | 1st Place At my parents’ insistence it began with makeup and the weight of false eyelashes. The disheveled hair I hid behind, tamed and straightened. At six feet tall I was a hanger designers draped clothes on.
I twirled in expensive images that women bought, I strutted in skimpy fantasies that men thought were real. Maintaining model weight I ate only yogurt-covered raisins. At night I dreamed of food— hamburgers and chocolate shakes. I woke panicked, pinching for fat. It began with a hammer, a few knocks to my elbows left bruises. I was not good at breaking bones. The blow to my leg didn’t do it. Maybe I wasn’t determined enough. I was better with razor blades, cutting soft stars into my body, carefully drawing straight lines into my forearm and abdomen, never deep enough to require stitches. I felt nothing, as if my skin didn’t belong to me. Like I was a rubber doll. Cutting was a fascination, an empowerment, my body my own. I hated myself at 16.
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