TW: SA, Suicide

When I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of the beauty mark you used to love.

The one that sat above your lip like a beacon beckoning boys to don the most attractive version of themselves. Their lips curled to hide sharp, predator’s teeth and eyes, half-lidded, keeping their true intentions secret.

When we were kids you brightened at any compliment you received. You liked to be fawned over, and you’d beam especially hard when someone mentioned your beauty mark. Women cooing over how it highlighted your smile, men joking that you’d missed a spot when wiping your mouth. It set you apart.

It was as much a part of who you were as your humour or your imagination. You drew it into every self-portrait and, later, posed for every photo with it in mind. To you, it was both accessory and identity. The part of you that made you feel your most beautiful, your most authentic self.

Sometimes I longed for my own defining feature that would make people notice me. But I was never truly jealous, I never coveted what you had. I couldn’t have fathomed my own face with your beauty mark, as silly as that sounds. In my mind, it was solely associated with you.

It wasn’t until our bodies started to change that your relationship with your beauty mark began to change too. I suppose that’s when others began to see it differently as well.

You were no longer adorable.

Instead, you were cute.

Then beautiful.

And then sexy.

Boys used it as an excuse to touch you, acting as if the tips of their fingers were made precisely for covering it’s imprint. Men used it to explain why their leering eyes devoured your lips.

They couldn’t control themselves.

Even if they wanted to.

You were gorgeous. Stunning.

You were nothing more than a mark above your lip.

You had so much of your identity tied up in that mark that you couldn’t separate who you were from it, even when your feelings about it changed. So, when a man looked upon you lecherously while taking liberties with your body, you believed him when he said it was your fault. Men couldn’t control themselves around you. How could they be to blame?

Someone had to be punished. I just wish you hadn’t decided it should be you.

I wonder, when you stepped off the roof, did you intend for your head to land first? To become faceless; so unrecognisable that your body could only be identified from our shared DNA.

No open casket meant no last goodbye. So sometimes, when I stare at my reflection, I try to see your face. But that patch of skin, that for you was kissed by a beauty mark, remains bare. Setting us apart even in death.

We were almost identical.

Almost.