Janie sits in her room with nothing to do except wait for her parents to leave for their important meetings. She hears the door slam, the cars leave, turning the corner from their secluded cul de sac, to the busy world where they spend all their time.

Her mind wanders to what she likes to do when she's all alone in this big house, that has no history, no sense of actual inhabitance, just perfectly clean rooms with everything matching, modern d?cor. She gets up and goes to the top drawer of her dresser. Hand shaking as she fumbles around in her underwear and socks till she finds her best friend, the razor blade she took home from her more than adequately funded art class.

She goes and sits in the middle of her bed thinking it won't be so bad this time. Slowly pulls up her extra small long sleeve that still looks two sizes too big, only to reveal a malnourished arm, thin and pale. On this thin arm of hers the flesh is riddled with scars. There is no room for more new cuts so she re-cuts one from last week. Slowly she cuts deeper and deeper on her wrist, a favorite spot. The blood wells up around the blade with growing volume as she makes each pass.

As if in a trance she gets up and stumbles down the hall to the bathroom where she takes off all her clothes, knowing now it's going to be bad.

Standing naked in front of the mirror she goes through her routine of pinching here, poking there, trying to see if she might have gained any weight. She, in her routine can't even resist stepping on their bathroom scale then grimly looking down at her feet for the millionth time. The number dial hardly turns, and when it stops it's much too close to zero. A girl of 5'7" should not weigh 73 pounds, but somehow this girl, this Janie has achieved this weight. All the while her left wrist exposed, crying, the ruby red tears fall to the floor.

She is now sitting on the toilet seat grabbing the blade she brought with, closing her eyes, hating herself. Hating herself for the way she looks, how much space she takes up, her imperfection, the need to vomit after eating anything, that she cuts, will the list never end?

All the time with her eyes closed, the blade has been learning all about her body, it's tooth exposed and covered with blood, a small pool of red pain under her arm grows with each drop. She opens her eyes only to faint, not because of what she saw, she liked that, but because of too much blood escaping her body from the 20 or 30 slashes she just made. Not only are the cuts on her arm but also on her legs, chest and abdomen, anywhere the dance of the blade took her hand, in it's romantically devilish tango.

Curled on the floor now she opens her eyes still holding onto the blade with her right hand she smiles to herself, see I can do it, it's all me, I have the power.

She makes her way into the shower, rinses off and then grabs for the blade again. Cuts still oozing washing over her body in a pale pinkish rinse. She doesn't use the blade this time to make healable cuts. This time she's had enough; she wants to leave this place. All the stares, all the fake happiness, all the happy masks. She only makes 4 more cuts, cuts to end it all. On each wrist is a bleeding red cross, the vertical almost reaching her elbow and each cut too deep to stop.

Lying now in her tub, small body pressing against the cold white enamel, she lays still on her back, arms on either side, wrists with their trickling blood face up.

As if in a dream, with a single tear escaping her eyes as she closes them for the last time. She sees a woman figure. Thin and frail with a translucence about her. Her pale face and white hair shimmer with sparkles. This untouchable beauty, Janie's now to touch, to unzip the back and step inside, to become one with the Goddess. The Goddess of Mutilation. The one that she has paid tribute to over every inch of her flesh. The one that comes to her in dreams, startling her awake with the undying urge to cut. Now look she is the Goddess. One more sparkle is placed on her face. Each sparkle on this Goddess's face represents one soul she has taken. Taken from their own personal hell and placed them on her face as beauty, something they thought they could never be, something perfect.

Janie's last breath is taken; a wheeze is a better way to describe it. Her body limp, the blood only a trickle, having escaped from her body and now swirls around the drain at her feet.