(Tiffany stands naked in front of a mirror. She examines her body from head to toe. What she sees makes her feel shame and discomfort once she sees the audience looking at her. She covers herself.)
This is how I start my day, trying to find the comedy or the punch line in what I'm looking at in the mirror. I wake up and for the first twenty to thirty minutes of my morning I examine myself from head to toe, from the top of my head, the bottoms of my feet, and everywhere in between. That is what the doctor told me would be a part of my life until the day that I died, checking my body. He told me to look for cracks in the skin, extreme dry patches, sores that look like they may be infected, brakes in the skin, any inflamed, mucus or blood draining from old stores, and any unexplained bruising. That is the life of a burn survivor. My life.
Half an hour I spend looking in the mirror. Luckily I don't have to look on my back it is the one part of my body that I did not get burned on. After I look at myself in the mirror I take a very lukewarm, low-pressure shower. I can no longer use a sponge or a towel because they are much too hard on my skin. I used to take baths once a week. It was like a treat for me, happy Friday. I can't do that anymore either because I'm not allowed to be submerged in water any longer. So many things of changed in my life and I never even knew that being burned could affect these things. My burns look much better now than they did when it first happened.
