Cleansed, chlorinated to the point of chemical peel, sore muscles relieved, I felt almost human again. Tiptoe to my room, up a darkened hall, past closed doors, I wondered if I'd ever feel completely human again.

So you want to know all about me. Who I am. What chance meeting of brush and canvas painted the face you see? What made me despise the girl in the mirror enough to transform her,turn her to into a stranger, only not. So you want to hear the whole story. Why I swerved off the high road, hard left to nowhere, recklessly indifferent to those coughing my dust, picked up speed no limits,no top end, just a high velocity rush to madness.

You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them.

Even good girls have secrets, ones even their best friends must guess.

She's no longer afraid to die. What she's afraid of is living, accepting the status quo.

Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

Words have power. The power to soothe. The power to skewer someone through the heart. The power to render someone speechless.