I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen.

No, I am never setting foot in this house again it scares me and makes me sad and I wish you could be a mom whose eyes worked but I don't think you can.

I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.

Dead girl walking” the boys say in the halls. “Tell us your secrets” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. "I am that girl. I am the spaces between my thighs, daylight shinning through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

The bathroom door swings open. Emma sees the blood painting my skin and the red rivers carved on my body. Emma sees the wet knife, silver and bone. The screams of my little sister shatter mirrors.

Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.

Death is funny, when you think about it. Everybody does it, but nobody knows how, exactly how.