Tam

Tam, with light yet not bright eyes, light-dark, a sun in eclipse, Tam whose clothes hang off her body, jeans off her hip bones, size 0, Tam who is running, sneakers scratching against the pavement until she falls, her crushed body, thin rotted wood not about to break in half but instead fall apart slowly, hitting the pavement. Skin like a rain cloud, grey and translucent, rain pouring down her face; not from her eyes, and stands up again to continue to force herself on, her feet keeping on moving themselves, one in front of another, like a roll of thunder, except there isn't enough weight to make any sound.

Tam who is opening her door and enters, pink and blue and vacuumed floors as her parents sit her at the table, her parents who don't know what to say as she nibbles at some green leaves before standing, she drinks some water after standing on the scale as those blood colored numbers flash on the screen and tell her of her never-ending failure.

Tam who's dead stick bones are all that lie under her sickly white-green skin, pulled raggedly over her head and face and arms and quest for perfection.

And her friends cry, and her parents cry, and her heart cries, and her eyes, perfect as always, light and dark and dead, remain perfectly dry.