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it's as plain as the food on my face


There’s that old saying, you know the one, something about wearing your heart on your sleeve.

I guess, you know, it’s supposed to describe a certain type of sad sack sentimentalist who advertises their most cringe-worthy feelings for all to see. Those feelings we’ve all been taught it’s common decency to stuff away and hide forever until we die alone taking our regrets and our unspoken declarations of love with us to the grave where they will decay along with our tangible bits. Those feelings.

But some of us are even more pathetic than sleeve-heart wearers. Some of us wear our hearts all over our faces, like we’re babies just learning to feed ourselves. We wear our desires and tragedies all over our faces like mashed peas and pureed sweet potato and prune whip. This heart all over the face type is gauche and far more uncivilized and our dirty faces are so much more obvious to the beholder than heart shaped badges ironed or sewn on to a sleeve like a Girl Scout. I mean, that’s sort of cute, isn’t it? But the food? All over the face? If you saw someone with a little heart on their sleeve you might go, aww…but if you saw a grown adult woman with food all over her face, you’d run in the opposite direction. You would. Especially if she was looking directly at you.

The heart on the sleeve crowd, it could be said, is guilty of nothing more than an endearing emotional fashion faux pas while the heart shmeared on the face folks are committing what is essentially gross emotional hygiene.

This is what I’m trying to say: I’ve rubbed my face in a plate of pre-masticated and gelatinous feelings. My emotions are in my eyes, in my hair, congealed behind my ears. I know I should just go wash my face, but honestly, I don’t want to.

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