Alone in a public bathroom,
she stared at her reflection,
looking straight into her own
blood-shot eyes.

Her jaw was clenched
as was her shaking hand,
tightly gripping a worn, yellow notebook.

She looked fiercely into her eyes-
bright blue in contrast to her midnight black hair-
and whispered,
in a soft voice,
“You are not going to die tonight.”

Her eyes turned to focus on the yellow notebook,
still clenched in her sickly hand.
She flipped through page after page,
each filled with her
small, messy penmanship.

Turning away from the mirror,
she kicked open a stall door
and proceeded to tear out
page after page,
each filled with her
deliberately placed stanzas,
and crumpled each.

Her pale hands
threw each page into the toilet
in the ***** public bathroom.
Her blue eyes
watched the ink bleed
and bleed
until her words became
unrecognizable.

Without flushing,
the dark-haired girl vacated the stall.
Her blue eyes turned back to the mirror
and she saw her thin, pallid lips
yell the words,
“YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DIE TONIGHT”