Beautiful Core

If beauty, in the end, is all that remains,
Then her losses outnumber all of her gains.
A tragedy, indeed, for the life she lost,
The mirror had been, for her, a deadly cost.

Walking barefoot down that mirrored hall,
She forgot that there’s life above it all.
And if and when her reality seeped in,
She refused to believe it was a deadly sin.

The restroom had been her daily escape,
Sobbing, prodding at her unfeminine shape.
The mirror defined her and all that she’d do,
She didn’t have the sense to deem it untrue.

Her complexion grew to be noticeably pale,
And then she was found to be rather frail.
They took her to the family doctor one day,
But he shook his head in morbid dismay.

“It is my regret to report,” the doctor had said,
“That tomorrow, I reckon you’ll find her dead.”
“Miss,” he said, “I hope you’ve found your wings,
Where you’re going, you won’t need other things.”

The next day, they found her eyes closed tight,
She died, they reported, that very same night.
And indeed she was beautiful to the very core,
But besides that, they found nothing more.