it’s not a big deal

it started small—
a tighter smile,
a softer no.
you know, social tax.

people clapped when I folded myself smaller, quieter, easier.
they liked when I scraped my odd angles smooth,
peeled off the rough parts, bit by bit,
until my voice sounded like hotel lobby music,
until i couldn’t remember what my own laugh felt like in my throat.

it’s not a big deal.

lately, my mirror started to look like a window into someone else’s bedroom;
someone with their eyes sunken,
and a smile too full,
like someone had packed it with meat.
ribs poking out like fingers trying to escape from underneath skin.
lungs squelching—a slick, slapping sound—like they are drowning in pleasantries,
or maybe trying to cough up a version of them that didn’t choke on everyone else’s comfort.
the bones in my hands shift when I’m not looking,
my smile twitches on its own.

so I covered the mirror; it’s not a big deal.

but here it is—that someone—right in front of me, fraying at the edges in the reflection of the TV, the display windows, the backside of my spoon,
cracking its neck, a wet pop like knuckles breaking, fisting a handful of something.

paper-thin smiles, half-swallowed apologies, childhood nods, and all the times I said yes please thank you, instead of no fuck off and fuck you.

I watch it unhinge its jaw in the darkest corner of my coffee,
tearing and clawing at the seams where it ends and I begin,
until it’s all I see; right there.

it moves like me,
like when we were six and crying while we stretched during ballet class; graceful, smiling.
hands slender and fingers slim—perfect to play the piano—holding the fistfuls of something’s, shoving them down my throat,

stuffing me with them until I gag on thank you’s and sorry’s, on sure thing, and I’m fine.

“Eat it”, it snarls in that sweet little voice that makes people smile at me; praise me for how gentle and polite I sound.

I chew and choke on all of it,
and by the time i look up, it’s wearing my face better than i ever did.
cleaner. smiling.

“It’s not a big deal” it says,
and I’m gone.
chewing, choking.

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