ugliness has a comforting quality.

It's familiar.

It sits around her shoulders like a cloak...a shroud. Ugliness is what she clings to when everything goes wrong. It's there, a well worn I told you so...I told you that you would be back. It's only ever a matter of time. I told you your thoughts would come here, then your feelings. I told you so.

Ugliness says that she could set her heart to burning and spread the flames of talent and passion like wildfire from sea to shining sea. That she could clean up her act and sell it as a whole show, off-broadway. Oh, and she can triumph over all those demons, brandishing the sword of success and pride. Yes, she can do all that.

But it won't be good enough.

Because she would prefer to sit within the solitude of darkness. She would prefer to throw the pieces of her dreams crashing to the floor, as fragile and ostentatiously smashed as dinner plates thrown at a Greek wedding. "Opa!"

Ugliness is strong and common and it can win. It seeps in and takes hold, like black mold in the wall. Sometimes she thinks that the only way to “Fix” “Everything” is to knock down the damn walls, the fortress consumed by mold, and build it all again.

Starting over is the only damn thing she knows how to do without a doubt in her head.