Dark Have Been My Dreams of Late

I woke this morning to a gray drizzling day and a deep sadness threatening to overwhelm me.  Sometimes the last dream I have before waking up will linger uncomfortably all day long, especially if I'm woken in the middle of said dream.  This morning's interrupted dream was particularly potent.  I don't remember the actual sequence of events, just a few powerful images, disturbing feelings, crazy intimations...

A sinister curse hangs over all the women in my family.  

It makes us all insanely beautiful.

Thin.

Shiny.

It also keeps us vapid and stupid.

Smiling. 

Mindless.  

We are beautiful shells of perfection but 

Completely empty inside.

No substance.

No self.

To break the curse means to forsake the promise of beauty.

No one is willing.

We are all afraid.

People I love,

People I trust,

People I count on to protect me

Are complicit in perpetuating the curse.

It has been decided that the benefits outweigh

The complications.

There is blood.

Blood on my loved ones' hands.

There is blood on my own hands.

There is a coffin-shaped cake

Iced in frothy white

With a dead baby baked inside.

Curly black letters scrawl across the cold white,

"For all my smiling daughters," it reads.