Blood and Lipstick

by Heather Heyns

My sister tried to teach me to put on make-up when I was seven. First the pink, which she wiped away after a sneer and replaced with blue. She rejected purple, orange, and silver-glitter next. A damp napkin stripped the colors away until my skin swelled, red and angry. We did this dance every year, and every year she put away her make-up after deeming me a lost cause.

I never tried on my own. Gobs of colored goo did little to transform me the way it did my sister. Instead, I picked. For every bit of beauty she added, I picked that same amount from my own skin. Every raised bump, every tiny imperfection, I went at with the attention of a surgeon removing tumors. 

As a teenager, she sat at her vanity, bottles and palettes open, and applied it all. I sat on the counter top, alone in front of the mirror of my bathroom. I leaned in, as I'd seen her do so many times, and I looked for the flaws. Each flaw I found I picked at and dug out. Red saturated my fingers as I scratched, until open sores remained. The sores would hurt, oozing and swollen, but I swore I saw something beneath them that was beautiful. It was always just a little deeper. 

When trying to take an interest in me, she took me for a manicure. The woman held my hands and stared in silence. She tried to attach the acrylic tips to the nubs, to the scraps of nail left behind, but the glue had nothing to hold to. Instead, she painted them red. That night more red oozed from where I peeled the pathetic remains of my nails.

One night my sister sat before her mirror, mascara wand in hand, and cried. She tried to apply her armor of pinks and reds quicker than the tears washed them away. Watery mascara smeared every brush stroke until she looked like the Starry Night painting. 

"I just keep thinking that if I could put a little more on, I'd look okay." 

I sat beside her on the small seat and stared into the mirror. Side by side, our features that always looked so different, were at that moment identical. She added, but could never add enough. I subtracted, but could never take enough away. We worked for beauty but got only puddles of tears and reds of every shade.