The Definition of Dysania (A Collection of Short Trepidations)

ℬℴ𝒹𝒽𝒾𝒸𝒾𝓉𝓉𝒶

I look up at my reflection—in a mirrored room. Tears are streaming down my face, along with the blood that flows indiscriminately down my shoulders in long rivulets that have gone into drought before, but not for long.

My nails are slender and sharp, without having the means to trim them. This godforsaken room has no door. No light—except for invisible illumination; designed to catch my best angles.

No one to scream out to. Nowhere to walk.
The room gets smaller every day, and I wait impatiently for it to crush me and get my blood and flesh everywhere.

I hope that no one cares enough to try to clean it up.

All I ask for now is for my funeral to be closed casket.

Not because I do not want to bother the mortuary staff with my crumpled remains, but because I am so hideous that no one other than me should ever have to suffer through me again.

***

It started when I was 10.

We had a cute End-of-Elementary-School 'dance'.

I dolled myself up—got a pretty dress, and a matching purse. And when I looked in the mirror, when I saw myself, I first noticed it.

A stain. Not on my skin, my dress, or my hair.

But still on me.

I called it the Ugly because I hated it, and it hated me.

A way you could tell if you hated something was whether you thought it was pretty.

I did not think I was pretty.

***

I was still looking at the stain, in the mirror.

And I punched it, but I could not break the glass to get to it. It had a deranged smile on its face and a pained look in its eyes.

I must have hurt it.

Success.

***

I went to the dance, and the next day, I started learning.
How to use makeup.
How to whiten my teeth.

As for dieting; it came naturally. I was simply never hungry anymore and it was awesome.

Even if the gnawing just traveled to my mind.

I could feel my ribs through my shirts.

My eyes and cheeks were sunken in hollows.

My skin was pale and thin as paper.

Aren't I pretty?

***

All my life, whenever I got dressed up, adults would say their dues.
"You look amazing!"
"You look beautiful."
"That is your color!"

They always said it with this pained look of lying. Like they were obligated.

'Don't treat me like I'm stupid,' I always wanted to rasp out, 'I know I am stained with Ugly!'
But I never said anything. Kept smiling.
Smiling always makes people look prettier.

Unless you grow old and then it only accentuates your age.

You can only smile for 25 years.
This is life.
Everything afterward is useless.

***

Now I am here.
Naked.

Crouched in a corner of a room—I cannot escape the stain.

Throughout my life, I made it my mission to get rid of the stain.
The best I have done so far is minimize it—by transferring it to others.

It never stays away.

I hate seeing it in mirrors, so I broke all of them at home.
I am too weak to do that now.

That did not stop me from beating my knuckles into the floor and walls until my wrist broke.
Still not even a crack in the mirrors though.

***

I am huddled into myself. This place is cold.

I zone out into disassociation. A sort of disconnect I have become familiar with.

I see the stain reflected on the ceiling, glaring as neon.

I ripped my eyes down to the wall across from me, for a different perspective, and I was right.

It's still here, like a faithful friend to a narcissist.

Nails dig into my chest.

I just need to rip out the stain.

That will make me clean.

That will make me pretty, I think with sudden clarity.

This pulsating origin of Ugly will be purged.

***

My breaths echo around me. My hands are drenched in something red, but it was worth it.

I finally dug deep enough to find it.

Just cut off the cancer, I say,
Everything else is already dead.

My fingers probe around the gaping cave in my chest. Poke at my ribs.

Go in deep enough.

Wrap my claws around it.

It is panicking.

Make sure I have a grip.

And

R i p.

***

Victory!

I think as I hold this malebolge outside of me.

I look back up in the mirrors.

I am clean.

I smile.

I am bleeding.

I am pretty.