Xinyue

“My hands read a Braille map hewn from bone, starting with my hollow breasts threaded with blue-vein rivers thick with ice. I count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage. They can almost touch what’s hiding inside. My skin slopes down over the empty belly, then around the inside sharp curve of my hip bones, bowls carved out of stone and painted with fading pink razor scars. I twist in the glass. My vertebrae are wet marbles piled one on top of the other. My winged shoulder blades look ready to sprout feathers. I pick up the knife. The tendons on the back of my hand tense, ropes holding down a tent while the wind blows. Thin scars etch the inside of my wrist, widening to the ribbons in the crook of my elbow where I cut too deep in ninth grade. I win, I won.   I’m lost.     The music from my bedroom shrieks so loud against the mirror it’s making my ears ring. I stare at the ghost-girl on the other side, her corset bones waiting to be laced even tighter so she can fold in on herself over and over until she disappears past zero.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls