It's a dull, lifeless existence for the middle class girl.

But I wanted to feel something.
I wanted to feel something real.

Electrified by the thrill of your touch; the light pressure of your fingertips on the small of back that sent shivers down my spine, awakening carnal instincts I knew not that I had.
Your kiss that infected me with the rush adrenaline which I would crave forever more, and search desperately to rediscover. And I never could. I never will.

I recall how it was to be your woman. Terrified by that crazed look in your eye, and that sneer, that grimace, fuelled by frustration? Or some sort of love I didn't understand? Or maybe just the satisfaction you gained from making me thrall. I bet you never knew how many moans I faked in the hope that you'd stop. Perhaps you never realised your misinterpretation of my cries for help as cries of pleasure. The bruises on my body were temporary but the scars on my heart remain a constant reminder of you. And how you were all I thought I wanted, all I never had, and all I wish I didn't know.

In disgust of what was staring back at me, I smashed the screen into a million shards.

Angrier I grew as more of me I saw;
A million broken faces in a million broken parts.

No escape from my reflection or what lies inside.

No amount of shattered glass will allow for me to hide.

Tell me,
what is so sweet about sixteen?

The layering of lashes in an attempt to age just two more years?

The relief when the shopkeeper served you that Smirnoff Ice?

And the excitement of drinking it in a park?

If you were lucky, the occasional spliff stolen from someone's older sibling?

Sweet is the nostalgia
but sweet is not the rawness of the reality.
Living the teenage tragedy is bitter and sour and tasteless.

Late nights
filled with mascara tears
fuelled by heartbreak.

Your rose-tinted spectacles see past the vomiting and the headaches and the regrets.

Would you do it all over again?
And would you do it exactly the same?

My glass was always half full
But now my bed is half empty.
My despondency begs the question:
*Did you ever really love me at all?

Did you ever hear the tale of the loneliest cigarette?
Bringing short term pleasure to just one man, while simultaneously burning herself away into oblivion, she is selfless.
He'll soon kick her to the kerb and stamp out her embers which she offered to him because it's what she thought he wanted.
When she is gone, he will take another.
*And she will be useless. Lifeless. Unwanted. Replaceable.