Most of the time Melanie’s expression said I am still here but I am already gone. Some found her mysterious and provocative and learned to like that stare, like a dark hint. Others found her gentle-souled but didn’t take her stare for a hint; there was nothing behind it. No inner force of the mind shaking the thunder from the skies, no creative courage of the young heart, no play in her eyes, no fire; just dry logs. Poetic as it might seem in retrospect, in the moment it was just ugly and exhausting to be Melanie. The tiredness only made room for more of the same. She wanted to detach herself from her body often, fast and loud, like a car crash. Run out of her skin and bones and muscles and fat and nerves and let it all fall out on the floor like a piece of clothing she’d been waiting to take off, fold up and never put on again, so rough it felt and so badly she wanted to scratch it off. Most people looked comfortable with how they’d turned out, but Melanie’s body felt like a strange thing she seemed to have picked up in a hurry on her way to becoming, in the wrong size and dullest colour. [...]
