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Description
"No one knows your heart is breaking if you don't show it."

"How can I not show it?"

"It's simple. You want to stay in your sweatpants and give up on your hair. You want to let the eyeliner stay smudged. You want to forsake make-up and look a mess because you feel a mess. But you need to look a miracle and sooner or later you will feel like one. Or, at the very least, people will leave you alone and you can cry as much as you want in private. They will give you more time alone because they will not be 'concerned', people will not ask if you are okay, and you will not have to lie to them."

"I don't see how that will work, but okay."

***

So she curled her hair before going to the Church of a God she hated, a God who would let her father die before she could know him; a God that blamed a woman for the world's sins. She put on her shiny shoes and ate the doughnuts all spread out and drank the coffee furtively.

It worked. Eventually she went to her mother, with a false, powdered blush of happiness and hair she cared enough to style, and she said, "Mom, I need to sleep before Church, is it okay if I don't go this morning?"

"Of course," her mother said.

And so it happened, week after week, and nothing was wrong. But when they left she could run on the endless streets, dizzy and high from hunger. When they left she could watch the cruel shows on T.V. and read the sharp books that showed how the world really was, with sex and drugs and hatred and money.

***

She stopped listening and wore flannel and ripped jeans day after day after day. She didn't bother to wipe the blackness under her eyes and she didn't bother to hide her paleness.

She kept her headphones inside her ears, and that worked for a bit.

But then people started asking again.

"Why don't you wear things that fit you better? You are drowning in those jeans, you're so thin. Get out the pictures, they're so pretty."

So she drew the eyeliner on, thicker and thicker, and she stopped brushing her hair.

Then they stopped asking.

***

She wore pearls in her ears and on her neck to her grandfather's funeral. She wore her best black dress and her best shoes, not out of respect for him, but out of respect to the rule: you were never allowed to show how truly grief-stricken you were. You were only there to shake hands and accept condolences and melt into the background and eat food from the snack platters.

***

"Selfishbitchwhorestupidfatuglyself-absorbedneverenoughstupidstupidstupid-"

She paints her lips and her cheeks and wears colors brighter than what she feels.
And she is complimented on it. Whether people know it or not, she is complimented on her pretending.

She is waiting for the day in which someone will grab her on the shoulder, spin her around and say, "You're lying. You're lying and I care enough to ask why you are lying."

Description
"No one knows your heart is breaking if you don't show it."

"How can I not show it?"

"It's simple. You want to stay in your sweatpants and give up on your hair. You want to let the eyeliner stay smudged. You want to forsake make-up and look a mess because you feel a mess. But you need to look a miracle and sooner or later you will feel like one. Or, at the very least, people will leave you alone and you can cry as much as you want in private. They will give you more time alone because they will not be 'concerned', people will not ask if you are okay, and you will not have to lie to them."

"I don't see how that will work, but okay."

***

So she curled her hair before going to the Church of a God she hated, a God who would let her father die before she could know him; a God that blamed a woman for the world's sins. She put on her shiny shoes and ate the doughnuts all spread out and drank the coffee furtively.

It worked. Eventually she went to her mother, with a false, powdered blush of happiness and hair she cared enough to style, and she said, "Mom, I need to sleep before Church, is it okay if I don't go this morning?"

"Of course," her mother said.

And so it happened, week after week, and nothing was wrong. But when they left she could run on the endless streets, dizzy and high from hunger. When they left she could watch the cruel shows on T.V. and read the sharp books that showed how the world really was, with sex and drugs and hatred and money.

***

She stopped listening and wore flannel and ripped jeans day after day after day. She didn't bother to wipe the blackness under her eyes and she didn't bother to hide her paleness.

She kept her headphones inside her ears, and that worked for a bit.

But then people started asking again.

"Why don't you wear things that fit you better? You are drowning in those jeans, you're so thin. Get out the pictures, they're so pretty."

So she drew the eyeliner on, thicker and thicker, and she stopped brushing her hair.

Then they stopped asking.

***

She wore pearls in her ears and on her neck to her grandfather's funeral. She wore her best black dress and her best shoes, not out of respect for him, but out of respect to the rule: you were never allowed to show how truly grief-stricken you were. You were only there to shake hands and accept condolences and melt into the background and eat food from the snack platters.

***

"Selfishbitchwhorestupidfatuglyself-absorbedneverenoughstupidstupidstupid-"

She paints her lips and her cheeks and wears colors brighter than what she feels.
And she is complimented on it. Whether people know it or not, she is complimented on her pretending.

She is waiting for the day in which someone will grab her on the shoulder, spin her around and say, "You're lying. You're lying and I care enough to ask why you are lying."