Sometimes i lay in my bath tub with the shower rushing over me and look up into the white starkness of the tiles and the sheen of the silver fixtures and see such beautiful simplicity in them. I see what has been represented in books, in homes and in movies over the decades, as this design does not alter too far from the norm.

And then i pretend i am dead. There is no movement — no sound, no feeling. I am absent of all human emotion. It is still and silent and soft. I look down at my still childlike and distorted body; against the hardness of the tub i can see how crooked my spine is and how out of proportion I am for a seemingly grown woman of 26– the smaller than usual hips and breasts would never tell the tale of tragedy that lies beneath.

My body rots, and the more it rots the more determined i am to fight it. Ah! you do not see it, and question my words as they enter your mind, but believe me it is there. Purposeful or divine –i rot.

But my mind is a completely different question. I used to think that within my mind was nothing but nonsense– some sort of fantastical world that I could never achieve and a web of lies and distrust. Mind you I KNOW now that the lies and distrust that rot my mind are as real as the scars on my pelvis that mark my physical rot.

But in these tiny effervescent moments lying in the bottom of my tub, feeling the water surge around me and follow to the drain I could cry for the tragedy that is who I am. And I do– or at least i have. In the most recent times of lying there, absent of thought, I feel as though I am not a part of it, but that I carry it for the sake of a story.

I am proud of my nimble yet deformed body and of the rot I have placed in it. I am proud of the rot that others have committed against it and I do not fear a day when it will all come tumbling down.

could fall silent yet I could speak.