The Painting

something about it was comforting, the way the misshapen face

seemed to smile in solidarity at our shared plight:

the battle of the deformed, although my fallacies were less visible.

the eyes bulged, in tandem with my envy––

eyes always seeking out reasons to be less than another.

or perhaps it was the cracks in the lips, dried out

like my own, craving the saliva of another to soothe me

and yet unable to find the time to cultivate such intimacy.

perhaps it was the shriveled ears, only hearing what i

allowed myself to hear; the opinions of like-minded individuals

making themselves known in the echo chamber of my mind

because i cannot stand to be wrong, but even more so

i am tired of people insisting i am wrong simply for existing.

maybe it was the fingers, crooked with age, a symbol

of my greatest fear: that one day my body will bow

under the weight of my mind, and i will no longer be able

to do what i love: writing, my fingers pressing down on keyboard keys

or scrawling in notebooks with the fragile tip of a pencil

that breaks if i put too much pressure on its tip.

more still, it could have been the gaping maw of crooked teeth,

sunk deep into rose-tinted gums, those enunciators of words

that come out all wrong and cut themselves on the edges of my molars

they bleed when i speak them aloud.

i watch the painting, entranced by the way it reflects me as easily as a mirror.

i grimace to see if the painting changes alongside me,

stick out my tongue and pull on my cheeks to see if it opens its mouth,

to see if its throat is just as distorted as mine, twins in our suffering.

a family walks past with their children, the mothers huffs––

"they really shouldn't show such disturbing things in here.

think of the poor children who'd have nightmares looking at that thing."

her daughter points at the painting and giggles,

"look mommy, that man has a silly face."

i couldn't tell if she was talking about me or the painting.