Wine-stained tears.

They drip onto the hardwood floor, leaving smudges of amethyst trailing down my forearms. I squeeze my shoulders and shove my swollen face deeper into the crook of my elbow.

The wooden barre creaks. I stiffen my back, all the while remaining hunched over the chipped and battered torture device. My eyes sting, rose and jasmine, with a tinge of smoke embrace me. Crush me. Destroy me.

Sweat beads on my pale skin, plastering broken, gel-laced hair to my forehead. The neat bun I spent hours on this morning is now ruffled and sloppy. Hundreds of bobby pins stab my scalp, but I'm numb to the feeling.

My last shot-

I mash my cheek into the barre. The coolness leaches across my skin. I breathe heavily. Once. Twice. Thrice. Gone. The frigid barre sears beneath the heat, until resting on it is almost as uncomfortable as knowing what it means to fail.

My feet falter backwards.

The feet of a dancer. Soft and silent.

I am numb to the bruises and blisters carved into the knuckles of my toes.

The mirror nears. I watch my reflection, the epitome of elegance and grace. It is easy to hide the pops and cracks of my bones under a pair of pale pink tights and a leotard.

Without them, I am broken. Damaged. I see that now.

My bare legs, the soft fabric of my red show dress brushing my thighs, are disfigured - milk blackened with pungent mould. My toes point with each step closer and closer, revealing scars from picked scabs and unhealed wounds.

I pause.

My reflection's face looks nothing like my own. Her eyes are sunken, her lips bitten until red and raw. Her cheeks are smothered with a wine-kissed blush that runs down her neck, her thick brows barely there. - pulled out with her fingernails from stress.

She is me. And I am her. But we have never been the same.

Until now.

My scream shakes the mirror.

She quivers in the reflection, her mouth pulled tautly, her throat bulging like an over-cracked pointe shoe. Her arms clutch her stomach, ripping and tearing at the silky material.

She doesn't stop screaming. I don't stop screaming. Until my voice runs dry.

I pant. Flames of pain grab my larynx, squeezing it so tightly that breathing becomes a struggle. The burning encases my chest. It's hot. Too hot. But I don't rush to the lavatories down the hall. I don't throw myself against the sink and slam my palm onto the tap. I don't guzzle down the sputtering water, the instant coolness soothing the burn.

I stare. Into the eyes of the woman in the mirror. The woman who is now me. The woman who has always been me.

'You're nothing,' I whisper hoarsely.

She remains still. She doesn't hear me.

'You're- ' I cough. My weak knees strike the floor, shooting pain up my thighs. 'You're nothing,' I spit.

The woman in the mirror struggles to hold herself upright on the floor. Her sage eyes are glazed. She's staring back at me. Empty. A pit of darkness.

'Nothing...'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing!' I scream.

Darkness blurs my vision. My head spins, pulsing with pain. Something warm trickles down my nose, running across my lips. Metallic. Like a dirty cent discarded on the roadside.

Focus.

The mirror is cracked. It distorts the woman's face, so her nose is where her right eye should be, and her mouth is split in half. But it doesn't hide the blood. It's dripping out of the wound between her pulled-out brows.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Glass splinters against my skin.

The darkness in my vision closes in. My head pounds, unbearably hard. Nausea yanks me into its claws and pulls me back. The ceiling is so high, but it's not. It's right there. It's above me, barely an inch from my skin.

I scream.

The final remnants of my voice shatter along with the woman in the mirror. She vanishes into the darkness. Into nothingness. As she should. Because she is nothing.

She and I are the same. We are one. We vanish into the void. Because we are nothing without ballet. And ballet is gone.