A hint of glitter still rests beneath my eyes, even after I’ve scrubbed at my face for half an hour. My eyelashes are still stained a little too dark. This is the remnants of my porcelain mask, the one I wore out last night when I was myself. A tarnished broken face, cracked china, stares back at me where it hovers in mirrored glass. I don’t recognise it. I forgot what that unpainted faces looks like, seeing only murmurs of it on occasion in a childhood photo. But the cheeks are no longer rosy and round. They are gaunt and blemished from abuse. My eyes are older now, grey and jaded, sharp as broken glass. Yet I still feel like the baby I was always dubbed.
Everyone I know is becoming an adult. They have grown-up jobs, are getting married and having children. I wonder who will regret their decisions when they hit thirty. Will They realise They didn’t live their lives when They had the chance? Will They long for the years They gave instead to commitment and parenthood? Or will it be me who is sorry? For wanting to experience everything—maybe a just a little too much—for touching and asking and having to know, in this sometimes selfish need for growth. Maybe I will be left behind, alone and tarnished, like a moth that has battered itself against a light bulb for too long. My wings already feel worn. I am not ready for them to give out; there are too many places left to fly, too many people I long to dust with magic, if they would let me.
I am afraid of falling.
I am scared that I will be left alone, that everyone else will simply drift until it’s just me, that version of me that no one else meets. I will be standing in a dingy bathroom, moth batting at the dirty swinging bulb, with no one to greet me but that strange and ragged face that lives in the mirror.
She never smiles nor says hello.