Please let me know what you think as you go. It's mildly experimental, most mental. I can never get the format to work properly..

Vanity Fever

January 15, 2011

With shaking anticipation,

she injected the needle liquid

into her smooth, glowing complexion

saying, "Am I ugly yet?

Is it working?"

.

Like an expectant child

On Christmas morning.

Like an excited dog,

having found a new owner.

.

But the glow in her eyes was more

than excitement, or adoration.

It was delirium, masked with

an agonizing need to be

less than what she was.

.

She sat in the sun, sometimes

wasting away to a lined crisp,

thinking the more dotted marks

the better to mottle her skin with.

The better the chance of melanoma

to greet the beautiful, sunny weather with.

.

(What better way to thank the sun

than to let it know it was working?)

.

And on weekend nights she would

sip absinthe by the mug-full,

like it was hot-chocolate in winter.

Sometimes she'd pitch mixtures of

tequila and rum, vodka concoctions

that she always thought would taste

like water.

.

She hoped that her liver was feeling

as honest as she felt. And that her

curdling, suffering organs would

be able to catch up one day, to her

state of mental decay.

.

But on weekday mornings,

she groped for her coffee,

black and saturated ninety-nine

with sugar. Swallowing down six

cups a day she checked her fading

visage with shaking hands, jittery

as they grasped the small vanity mirror.

.

She would smile if her

lips were pale and her eyes

soaked through with ink,

bleeding beneath a puffy

waterline.

And her skin potholed in abstract

organization, where the sparse hairs

matched the number of marks marred.

.

Until one day, she thought that

her drooping, bruise-coloured

under-eyes would not melt any

darker or sink any lower, she, in

lined consternation, left the office

in impatient hurry, and met the

office of blank white walls,

dull, old notices and seats fulls of

perpetual, apathetic, wait-ers.

.

They hardly looked at her pale,

jaundiced skin or her bony thin hands,

they only noticed that she would be here

for the same reason as they were.

But instead she sat down,

and as their heads lolled in dulled,

mental exhaustion, they only wished

their quick cures and medicated

prescriptions would come

just a little

quicker.

.

And she watched on in rapt attention

reading over every notice and every old

magazine at least thirty-six times,

and when the moment came, she stood

calmly, as others glanced in faint attention.

.

As she sat in the large black chair,

leaning backwards just a little, she

hoped this would be her last time,

but did not realize

it was only her first.

.

And so with shaking anticipation,

she injected the needle liquid

into her dulled, grey complexion,

saying "Am I perfect yet?

I know it's working."

A/N: So, I'd wanted this to mean a number of things. One regarding health, the other just to pose a completely contradictory situation. I scared myself a little, writing this. Appreciate Feedback.