Girl Made of Rubber by Annie Shin (18, Pennsylvania)

The rubber girl never breaks skin, 
Not to preserve the pure, pink flesh inside, but 
To hold herself in one piece. 

Bruised, prodded, groped, shoved, 
She is thrust across vices, the hot friction setting each one aflame--
Burning them from memory, from existence— 
Leaving pieces of herself in her wake. ​

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She sheds the gray, necrotic remnants of herself 
As she is stripped, reduced, chafed, 
As she pills at her paper-thin skin, 
As she is devoured by mistakes that are never hers to confess. 

But as she dissolves each abandoned sin, 
The line between perpetrator and victim, 
Once drawn so clearly, also begins to fade. 

And the rubber girl forgets that she once stood tall. 
She forgets to remember her innocence, and 
To love what is left of her-self. 

When she sees what remains of her body— 
Her exposed, gaunt, misshapen figure— 
She has no one to blame for the mess, but her-self. 

The rubber girl never breaks skin, 
Not to lessen the pain of her self-punishment, but 
To evade yet another mess to clean. 

She existed a bit longer, 
Intact to the end. 
The rubber girl was unbreakable, until she was 
Gone.​