Lipstick

With makeup I no longer have my mother’s eyes. It is her eyes I fear, the cold blue, windows into nothing at all. I draw a pretty line in deep espresso over the top and the thinnest layer below – that alone is enough to make it bearable to look in the mirror and take those eyes to be my own. I guess I should thank her for being fat too, that way I have all the more motivation to stay slim.As a young girl she had hardly bothered with make-up, her youth made her beautiful enough. Heads would turn, boys took notice. But now that she had her toes in her fourth decade things were different. She would never leave the house without a full face on. It was a mask on her aging, she felt safe behind it, and she felt naked without it. It was confidence in a tube, beauty in a bottle, ego in a palette. It allowed her to cling to the illusion of youth a little longer, to pretend she wasn’t middle aged and marching forwards.