I don’t think she notices, but I see her all the time.  At her best, when she’s all dolled up, cheekbones covered in blush, her auburn locks perfectly curled, and her eyelids coated in golden dust. Yet, I have also seen her at her worse.  Her hair is a chaotic mess and tears are cascading from her emerald green eyes.  Her sobs break my heart, each one more sorrowful than the previous. When she sits in front of me and asks if it is all worth it I wish I could reach out and hold her and never let her go, or at least  wish I could talk to tell her how beautiful she really is, inside and out. I wish I could make the people who make her feel this way just up and disappear. But that’s not even the worse part. Some days she’ll stand in front of me in the wee hours of the morning while everyone is asleep and she will add a new line to her collection. I try to turn away but I cannot, those faded red lines on her side grab my attention every time, this last one still deep red and puffy. I can still hear her wails over the roar of the steaming shower. I can only hope that one day she will emerge from the shower stronger than when she went in, her mind washed of all those horrific thoughts, for her to step out and look at me. When she looks into me I want her to see through herself and see how incredibly marvelous she really is. When she does I will be the first to witness it, for I am the holder of her reflection. The mirror in which she looks when she believes there is no one else.