If Perfection Resides

She kneels to the ground.
As if moments away
From prayer.
The ceramic tile
Surfaces, inches from her face.

Fluorescent light
Encircles her frame
Sweat drapes over her skin
Nothing exists;
But the torment she's in.

Live, salted torment,
Drip mercilessly from beneath
Her eyelids
So discrete.

The mounting question,
Suppresses the moment.
What makes them emerge?
Is it the sting of the acid?
Or the horrific self loathing
Required to purge such life?

But perfection resides,
in the eye of the beholder...
Says the girl
With beauty of a queen.