Written by Tracie Renee
I taught myself to line my eyes with kohl
but did it badly. The trick was a steady hand
I did not have. Pretty was a mask that
pinched, a brand I stalked
but couldn’t buy. K-Mart bluelight special lipstick
kissed my ghost into sealed envelopes that mostly went
unanswered. On prom night I spent hours pinning violets in my hair that
wilted before the first slow dance but even that
had nothing on the nuanced complexities of applying
foundation: trying to get the color just right, trying
to blend it just so, trying to hide
my flaws. Disappearing was an art; I,
a blank canvas. There were pots
of concealer, palettes
of eyeshadow, wands
of sob-proof mascara
to mask every feeling, disguise every shade
of real
every day
until the one day each year
when I disappeared completely and
became someone else. I never got that right either:
costumes clung too tight or hung too loose,
masks slipped. The lines around my eyes
wobbled, the color in my hair
faded too fast, no one knew who I was trying
to be. Even then I was never enough;
even then I could only be
myself.
.
Tracie Renee Amirante Padal (she/her) is a librarian, a Publishers Weekly book reviewer, a three-time winner of the Grand Prize in Poetry from Outrider Press, and a Best of the Net nominated writer who lives and dreams in sort-of Chicago. She’s got words for grown-ups in East on Central, Elegant Literature, Eunoia Review, Frazzled Lit Mag, and Prairie Home Magazine; and words for kids in The Dirigible Balloon and Little Thoughts Press. Say hi and find more words here: https://linktr.ee/tracie.renee