Who, ARE, YOU?!

You could smell the past personalities as you stepped through the broken door. Different looks, fake genetics and stale air mending together, a teamed voice to make your head feel light and nostrils burn as you inhaled the remains of "beauty."

She never opened windows. The smell coated her being, living within the depths of her hair. Her dresser drawers. The pores on her skin. All reeking the same putrid scent.

The leftovers of her hair colors lay around her apartment, each ground-in blotch finding a new story to tell. The spot of honey-blonde of the carpet brought out how much she needed to vacuum, as it used to bring out her flawed skin. It disappeared within one day, being replaced by the fire-red that now burned against the wooden finish of her coffee table. As her coffee table matched nothing in the whole apartment, her hair didn't either. She stuck with it for a week, tops. A black hole rested on top of her white dresser.It clung to each strand of her hair like poison, making her look sinister as it brushed against her peachy face. Innocence sept through her eyes, though; flicking about, a restless sky carrying a sea of clouds.

Silly me thought that she would've stopped there, finally finding the one shade that defined her. But, three weeks later, there were green streaks thrown about her kitchen, matching the vibrant grass color of her hair.

When you spoke to her, she would grasp at her hair. As unhealthy as her hair-dying was, her hair had yet to crunch within her loose fingertips. She stroked it as if she were dealing with rare straws of gold easily draping down from her scalp. As if she were graced instead of doomed, her locks bound to fall down around her someday; her house of cards crashing to the ground with her self-esteem.

I was there that day.

The bathroom light flooded the hall, the only room that she made sure had enough lighting. The doorway being a collage of different splatters, undefined and caked around the frame. A rainbow above and around, leading the girl to her paradise, the room she spent the most time in. The emotions in the air were off, tainting the overbearing smell. And, I heard sobbing over the old fashioned boombox she had placed on the toilet.

Stepping through the threshold, I saw the pavement of straw. Bleached and golden, crunching underneath my foot before I paused. She stared up at me, rain pouring down from the sky as she held dead grass to her scalp. Red and burning, irritated like the rims of her eyes. Her personality was falling away so easily from her, the tangled strands of stinking hair; she was losing herself. The bottle lay on the floor next to her, dripping on expensive tile. Yet , she still picked up worthless, tortured strands and tried to plug them back into her scalp again.

Her true self was finally pouring from the shine on her head. Insecurity dripping down every pore. Low self-esteem shining through her beautiful eyes.

I held her that night.

Her hands never leaving her balding scalp, tears never ceasing to flow from her tired eyes. The only time she spoke was in delusional rhymes. Woe and exhaustion working at her eyelids. "Who am I going to be now?"

She fell asleep in my arms that hour.

Her puffy eyes were full of forced strength, she pushed herself off of the couch and stood in front of the television. Wiping a hand over her clean scalp, she stared at her gray reflection. Blue eyes bouncing off the dull screen. And, a genuine smile seeped over her face. The first one I had ever seen. She turned toward me, flashing a grin and said, "I'm going to be Emily Rosern."

I fell in love with her that moment.