Inspired By The Bancroft Prompt: Will You Visit The House of Usher?

Every morning

I try to make myself look pleasant, I try to make myself pretty and acceptable  and most of all approachable.

” Look Good, Feel Good, Do Good ” I saw that on my Facebook news feed. So I try to do what Facebook says because maybe I’ll fit in, from what I have seen, if you can speak Facebook and follow it’s teachings  you are halfway to being invited into the human race.

As I have in the past, I hope that today is the day I get it right and maybe today is the day I don’t feel like that one piece of rotten fruit in the overflowing fancy antique crystal fruit bowl of life.

I wash my face, I brush my hair, and I softly chant those magic words, ” Look Good. Feel Good. Do Good.”

As I apply my eyeliner I whisper those words, as I put on my lipstick and dust blush onto my cheeks I raise my voice and sing it to the Universe.

I lift my chin make sure I’ve properly blended my powders and creams and colors that are guaranteed to make me look sun kissed and vibrant and alive and approachable and God help me…loveable.

I want to be loveable most of all.

Will it work?

I don’t know, it hasn’t yet.

I must be missing something, some small detail  that makes people not take the seat next to me on the train even though all of the other seats are full, or the way they try not brush up against me when I’m walking down a busy sidewalk.

Can it be fixed with the right scarf? The right color of lip gloss? If I can find it, I know I can correct it.

I look into my mirror and I start to cry because I’m beginning to think that that memes from social media or expensive cosmetics are going to help me and I don’t know why.

I cover my ears with my hands so I won’t hear myself sobbing and then I think-maybe if I put my hair up and twist it into a knot and hold it in place with a pen or clips. That might do the  trick I desperately hope as I run into my bedroom and grab a pen and some hairclips.

I run back into my bathroom, I stand up straight I smile confidently  into my mirror and I lift my hair up into a ponytail and that’s when I see the incision and the thread near my collarbone  that the Mortician used to sew me back up after she embalmed me.

I poke at it a little and think maybe I should do something about that too.