People always say that ballet is graceful. They speak for hours after watching a performance, marveling at the dancers’ grace and elegance. They applaud enthusiastically while gazing at the stage in awe. They see a title page, a disguise, a mask. Underneath the surface of bright lights and happy endings, there is nothing but a dark stage occupied by a girl naked, shivering, and alone. Her face is engulfed by quivering hands covered with dry, cracked skin and fingernails blue from the cold. Her hands slowly reach out to comb through brown, lifeless hair. When she draws her hands away to rest against protruding ribs, brittle hair floats delicately to the ground like a feather cruelly cast away from its owner. Tears barrel their way down her cheeks like a train unable to stop for the oblivious children playing on its tracks. Her body is nothing more than an abandoned painting, fixed and perfected beyond recognition. Her ankles quiver beneath satin chains of beauty and grace. Her fingers tremble as they graciously bow to rows and rows of awestruck admirers. Her legs falter as they are barely contained within the confines of the tutu so painstakingly stitched just for her. Her head spins, dizzy under the pressure of the tiara: crowned queen of the mentally ill.