Dear Ana

by I.I.E.

They had it all wrong, though. It wasn’t cute when I had to brush my teeth for double the amount of time just to make up for my lack of oral hygiene the night before. It wasn’t quirky when I could barely bring myself to scrub away the grime left over from all the food and bacteria in my mouth before it rotted my gums. It wasn’t special when I could scarcely get myself to take a fucking shower even when it’d been a week since the last one, and my hair was a knotted bird's nest hidden under naturally hectic curls and a shit ton of coconut scented dry shampoo. And then after I finally managed to drag my body into the tub, I couldn’t get myself back out until eventually, the water would shrink me into the pruned version of a corpse. That was the only part of it I liked. When the cascading water withered me into a raisin and suddenly I felt small and weightless and it was easier to carry myself upwards . . . but that feeling was always fleeting. The same could be said about every other basic human necessity. Everything that was supposed to be simple suddenly turned into a draining and time consuming task.