Her mama questions her
“What you need that for?”
“Your skin is perfect”
Another teenage-exploration mama thinks to herself.
Daughter, seemingly ashamed, takes the facial scrub into the bathroom
Dabs her face wet
Looks at her dry skin
Applies the scrub
And scrubs
Scrubs
And she scrubs
Skin falls down into the sink
Scrubs, harder
It doesn’t disappear
Scrubs
Blood splatter on white porcelain
Like a bleeding swan
Tears up
Scrubs
She panics
How can it not disappear?!
Scrubs ferociously
Tears, blood, skin, chemicals blended into a devil’s stew
Scrubs
Scrubs
Scrubs
Stops.
Looks at herself in the mirror
The realization hits her harder than anything she’s ever experienced
It won’t disappear
The fat is still there.
She whispers
“I’ll be fat forever”
Josie Mattsson 