Disclaimer: I own neither the play nor musical "Spring Awakening". Character, plot, and [some detail credit goes to Frank Wedekind, Duncan Sheik, and Stephen Sater.

Rated T for suggestive material

I think of Moritz sometimes. When I'm dressed up and posing for what seems like days. When I'm out drinking absinthe with the

artists. When I'm staring at myself in the mirror above Heinrich's bed as he kisses my skin. I stare at myself, lying still, pearls of sweat

against my cheek glimmer in the pale rays of moonlight that sneak through the lavender clouds of midnight. I curiously squint at my fair

complexion, my figure silhouetted against the dark shadow of the bed sheets- as if it were another one of the paintings.

If this were a painting, Heinrich would paint daisies in my hair, sprinkled like raindrops over the soil of the empty winter crops. He'd

paint my eyes purple instead of blue. He'd leave out the brown under my nails. He'd leave out the freckle above my right rib. But he

would keep that blue bruise below my left shoulder, that remaining puncture of my past life that I never looked at enough for it to heal

entirely. He always kept it- for what he considered metaphorical reasons; he saw it as the bitter veins of my heart that a past lover

broke, which never recovered. He never saw it as the mark where a man, respected by his family and neighbors, pinned his daughter

down to the cold floors of the very home he raised her in.

It wasn't like the other odd wounds I carried. The worn red skin on my heels from waiting barefooted too long in the snow. The pink

cuts on my wrist from wriggling free of handcuffs too many times. The flat tips of my fingers from clinging onto too many different arms

for dear life. These were wounds that belonged to a girl who no longer needed a name, a fearless girl who was no longer called on.

The bruise below my shoulder was that of a frightened, childish Ilse, who needed years to build up the courage to escape the world

haunted by nightmares of her own father. Ilse was the name that went with a little girl with mislaid hope, a child trying to find herself. A

girl who continued to purposely lose herself didn't need a name.

My eyes suddenly burned from the dazed stare. I went into a still panic; if I blink, tears would brim over and trickle down my face. I

didn't cry anymore. Yet eventually, and instinctively, my eyes would shut. I didn't want them to. I feared the images behind my eyelids,

the way I feared the bruise of my heart. I rapidly fluttered my eyes, shifting uncomfortably underneath Heinrich. I had become ignorant

of his presence, despite his continuant movement and enduring touch. Only a light ring of tears circled my eyes.

I thought of Moritz again. His despair and longing. I saw Ilse in the mirror for a moment. Not searching for escape, but seeking a lost

friend. If only the vessels of my heart were harder broken. They would bruise my whole body and I could wander with Moritz through

realms of an afterlife.

If it was Moritz painting my reflection, the flowers in my hair would've been forget-me-nots instead of daisies. He would keep the

freckle above my rib. If it were Moritz, I wouldn't have the dirt under my fingernails or the cuts on my wrists or the broken skin on my

heels at all. If it were Moritz, he wouldn't have dressed me up and titled me Ariadne or Leda or Ganymede. I would be Ilse. But if it

were Moritz, I wouldn't be numbly gazing at the mirror above his bed.