after my shower last night, i looked in the mirror.
the tiny, silver rimmed one cleverly masking the medicine cabinet. with its still damp toothbrush.
and i took a second to examine my eyes. the curve of my lips, the shape of my forehead. the height of my cheekbones and the depths of my pupils. i tried to look subjectively. from an outside perspective. and i almost accomplished it. for a split second, i saw a stranger. past the familiar, the usual and the comfortable. into an alien state of out-of-body consciousness. i forgot my favorites. my likes and dislikes. my preferences and tastes. and just saw a girl. with wet hair in a bun and smudged mascara.
then my glance turned upward. to the tiny crevice emerging just slightly from the top of my left brow. a tiny pock mark no bigger than the head of a pushpin. a light scar from the time i had chickenpox in elementary school. in my impatience and utter agony, i had scratched at the surface of my skin, and everyone knows you don't scratch chickenpox. you just don't.
and i returned. to myself, the evening, the present.
because it was quite possible, that at that very moment, another girl was doing the exact same thing, wet hair and all. maybe in paris. maybe in ecuador. maybe right down the road. there was a chance that her hair was wet, that she had just taken a deliciously hot bath. that her mascara was leaking.
but i knew for certain, beyond any doubt creeping in with the moon, that no one was running her finger across a tiny, circular imprint just above her brow. jaggedly round, with a raised right side.
