The slathering is inescapable lately. Thick swipes of concern suck the perspiration from my forehead.
It pools there.
And drips into my eyes.
I promise I’m not crying.
I’ll be angry if you don’t believe me.
Believe me.
I knit my brows at the peppered fingerprints above them, tying my pupils in circles, trying to discern who the delicate patterns belong to. Some have managed to carve well-meaning questions into the tiny grooves. Others stick their thumbs out in positive solidarity. The rest slash with uncut fingernails of naïveté.
“So, Jillian, is anything new?”
I both love and hate this smear of words. The bottle it comes from lists the ingredients: Intrigue, worry, peptides, incredulity, wisdom, zinc oxide, suspicion, innocence, SPF 50, hope, and love. It’s all held in a tall, amber carafe, I imagine. One that lives on the eye-level shelf of someone who cares. One that lives in the hands of someone who is being hugged from behind.
And so I massage my temples. You know, that spot just above the ears I want to pierce again? You know, that spot that houses the gossamer wings of brown eyeliner that I smudged this morning? You know, the part of my head that aches when I’ve held my jaw too tight between my teeth?
“It’s salve,” I tell myself. “Absorb it.”
The words melt into my forehead easily. When I spread the lanolin white to my cheeks, it swirls mauve with the embarrassment of two years of total lackluster.
“Nothing’s new.”
Believe me.
I’ll be angry if you don’t believe me.
Let’s be honest, I’ll be angry either way.
But I understand. I understand why you would assume that the mauve on my cheeks and the lilac on my lips and the red on my nose are from kisses, not the cold. I understand why you would look at the determination in my eyes and assume that what I want, I get. You cannot see the bite marks on my tongue.
There is something unfortunately relieving about apathy. They don’t teach you that in school. I scrape at my taste buds when I brush my teeth and question whether my palate is meant for its surroundings.
“Keep chewing. The aftertaste hits you when you least expect it.”
Huh.
I don’t believe you. But my fingernails are looking exceptionally long lately.
And so, my dearest, I stick my tongue out to you. No, I’m not flirting. But I’m happy. Incandescently happy. Furiously happy. My skin is thickening. My brain is jittering. I am learning that the only thing that has ever truly hurt me is sentences. I am realizing that I have never broken a bone. I tap, tap, tap along a keyboard and someone pays me for my thoughts, as long as they aren’t too tangential. I blow dry my hair when I have nowhere to go. Quiet compliments thread themselves through my veins and calcify there, forcing me to face them every time I breathe. I worry about those I love who aren’t loved enough. I lament the fact that I have to watch from afar. I put on my running shoes and take them off again. The sheet of ice over my car thickens, and I set my keys back down on my kitchen table. I untie my shoes. A long, blue custard spoon sits in my cutlery drawer, and I have yet to wash it.
So, no, the tip of my tongue is none of your business.
I’ll let you taste it anyway.
XOXO,
-J