It wasn't poetic in any way, her life. Michelle had seen countless films and books that romanticized disorders that were the exact opposite of beautiful, far from it.
There was nothing beautiful about her life, nothing aesthetically pleasing. She couldn't recall when it began, not like most people could. She couldn't be presented a timeline of her life and point, say "this is where it all went wrong."
Because, she supposed it had always been off, different than other people's. When she was young, it had finally hit her that most little girls didn't hide away in their rooms every day as their parents screamed in the other room.
From the moment Michelle was aware, she knew that other girls weren't like her. They didn't have lives like her.
Her mother was better than her father, she'd always known that, and had always made an effort to be there for her, to do things for her.
Months after Michelle had expressed interest in ballet, having seen beautiful women dancing on the TV, the woman had bought cheap supplies and signed her up for a dance class.
And when she had practices or recitals, she made an effort to be there. When the girl began to drop pounds rapidly, she didn't blame them for not noticing. She hid it behind her large baggy clothes and never brought it to attention.
Still, Michelle knew she could never be pretty like the other girls, skinny like them. Of course there were comments from her instructor, from her peers. Look at Michelle Jones, look at how big her thighs are and how plump her cheeks are.
The brunette spent countless nights hunched over the toilet with tears streaming down her face as she shoved her fingers down her throat, heaving and heaving until there was nothing left.
For the longest time, she didn't even understand what an eating disorder was. Didn't realize that eating as little as possible and throwing it up when she did wasn't something she'd invented.
She'd known it was bad, knew she couldn't tell anyone, even after she collapsed one day, her head pounding and stomach clenching.
She was more careful after that. When her father left, Michelle had sat in her room like she often did, tears rolling down her face, and she just wondered, what the hell was wrong with her?
She thought that if maybe she was different, if maybe she was better, then he would have stayed, then maybe they wouldn't have fought to often.
That was the first time the girl had brought a blade to her skin, slashing marks across her hips until all she saw was red and her vision was blurring.
Michelle woke up the next morning to blood spotted sheets and burning pain on her waist.
Even when her stomach was so painfully empty and her hips burned something fierce, the brunette had dancing.
Often silently, with no music, Michelle danced. She would close her eyes, let her body move for her, and she'd feel okay for a few hours.
But she still always ended up on the bathroom floor, her knees aching and her fingers down her throat. She always ended up with a small blade clasped between her fingers and tearing through her skin.
She knew for a long time that she wasn't okay. But, she would never be, had never been.
Then her mother and her had moved to Manhattan, and she got into a prestigious STEM school.
She kept to herself, watched other people with their friends, watched them laugh and joke, free of the weight that always seemed to settle on Michelle's shoulders.
Looking at everyone else, it was clear that they weren't like her. They didn't have eating disorders, didn't self-harm, and they were light.
The teen had always viewed herself as dark, as heavy, as something that no light could fix, as something that was broken.
And then she met Peter Parker. She'd sit at their table, his and Ned Leeds' and she'd read a book, observing them every once in a while.
Looking at Peter, she could see both light and dark, could see that he was more than met the eye.
"My friends call me MJ."
It was a change she welcomed, and finally having people to call her friends was a strange concept to her, it was something she'd always so desperately craved. But it was nice.
It wasn't long before Michelle, MJ, noticed that Peter's warm smiles made her feel something else, something good. When she was with him, she forgot about her scars and the way she counted calories.
Their friendship evolved into something else, something better. Something that involved his hands in hers and their lips colliding. It involved his arms wrapped around her, and it became the one thing she always looked forward to.
Slowly, Peter and May Parker became her family, the ones that were there for her when she needed it.
And when MJ danced across a stage, if she caught Peter's eyes in the crowd, maybe her heart swelled and her eyes watered just a bit.
She should have known, though, that someone would find out. Someone always found out.
It had been her fault in hindsight. She hadn't eaten in days, and her hips were gaining marks daily, her hands shaky and her head full.
When she passed out this time, it was as she sat in Peter's room with Ned and him, pretending to listen to their nerdy rambling.
She woke up in a hospital bed with her crying mother beside her and her puffy eyed boyfriend holding her limp hand.
That day had been an emotional rollercoaster for everybody involved and her mom had just said the same thing, over and over again. "Just eat, please Michelle. Eat."
And she tried, she did. MJ would eat as much as she could bare, would tell her family when she felt the urge to drive her fingers down her throat or a blade across her skin.
But it wasn't enough in the end. It was never enough. There was nothing beautiful or poetic about her life. Not about her countless nights heaving out whatever she'd managed to retain, not about the small blades from razors drifting across her hips in smears of blood, and not about how light she'd been.
There was certainly nothing beautiful about her bony limbs and pale skin when her mother found her, nothing beautiful about the blood splattered note next to her never again to open eyes.
There was nothing poetic about it at all.