The Me that looks Back

I dunno if this is angsty or cringy, these are just words that I needed to get out of my system.

My face stopped looking like mine a while ago. Fifteen minutes? Thirty? I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that the tired highschooler appearing as a dirty, speckled reflection isn’t me. It can’t possibly be me.

Colors have begun to appear distorted. I break eye contact with the mirror mystery man and notice that the veins in my hands are blue, quite similar in shade to a summer day’s vast azure. My knuckles are a peachy pink, and the circles under mystery man’s eyes now seem as purple as roadside wildflowers. 

I wonder what happens to the pigment in your eyes when you die. Does it fade like leaves of autumn trees? Will my mold-blue marbles with little specks of sand one day become faint and dim, even unrecognizable? Maybe the morgue can fix it. I’ve never seen a dead person up close, but I assume that morticians have tricks up their sleeves to keep one’s eyes looking fresh and unsettling. 

I’ve attended three funerals in my lifetime. The most memorable was only a few years ago, when my grandpa’s brother passed. There in Michigan, I was consoled by people I didn't know, for a person I didn't know. The least memorable funeral I’ve ever been to was when I was very young. My mother’s grandpa was a veteran, and received a very formal send-off. I recall thinking to myself “This takes forever,” too naive to notice the many folks who wept. I was seven or eight when my neighbor Nancy died. It was oddly soothing to cry for a good reason, and to be surrounded by other folks who cried for a good reason. 

I’m too emotional, and I’ve always been this way. I used to cry at foods I didn't like, people I didn't like, or sometimes for no apparent reason. I’d love to say that I’ve gotten better, but I don't think that recovery and repression are the same thing. It’s as if I’m crying inward, like tipping your head back during a bloody nose. Tears flow under my skin and down my skull, sogging my bones with their oceanlike sting. 

Grandma sometimes calls me “Lumpy”, because my skin is too small for my skeleton. It stretches around my bones like a wet suit that I can’t escape. My mother often encourages me to eat more for lunch (and every meal, frankly). I think she worries about eating disorders, which is really quite fair. 

I look back to the fellow that is my reflection. They look a little more like me, now that I’ve spent some time spacing out into the bathroom sink. My eyelashes are wet and sparse. I have an odd little habit of picking at them when I’m stressed. I have a lot of habits I practice when I’m overwhelmed. One of these days, I’ll muster up the will to get some help, though I worry that the slits that appear and reappear in my thighs might scare people away. Maybe it will like I’m faking, or maybe it’s so normal that nobody would bat an eye. Everyone cuts these days. Why should I be so special? 

I pick at the wet suit fabric around my mouth. It’s dry in this November weather, much like the rest of my skin. My philtrum dips, parting identical curves around it, which look rather pretty when the air isn’t so dry. Picking at my lips probably doesn’t do anything, but until I’m proven otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be doing any harm. 

It’s quite freeing to know that I’m not conventionally attractive. I’ve always been reminded, whether it be my crooked, yellow teeth, or hair that I never realized was curly until the sixth grade. Even then, I never really dealt with it until maybe last year. My friends always tell me that I’m beautiful, but I find it hard to believe. Did they simply look around all my ugly pieces, or did acne scars and frizzy hair fit into their idea of someone who looked good. I hope that one day I’ll get better at taking compliments, like how one day I’ll stop cutting, or how one day I’ll stop crying, or how one day, I’ll look like myself again. 

Author's Note

In case there was any confusion, this has zero connection to Skeletons in the Closet.