one day i’m 14 and i’m watching a video of a girl explaining how to do winged eyeliner. i’ve never used makeup before, but my teenage years are starting to fall into me like tumbling, wobbly legs. eyeliner seems easy enough. i like the cool girls who wear eyeliner, anyway. the girl in my video seems cool. one movement of her hand and the job is done. she says she’s being doing her eyeliner for a really long time, so it all comes easy to her. i trust her and i follow her voice, her hands, the way she angles her head up to fill in the shape. i’m so proud of it i ask my mum if we can go shopping. i go to the cool store where the cool girls with eyeliner hang out. i buy some earrings and i hope the cashier noticed my eyes.
then the next day i’m 19 in switzerland, doing my makeup next to my cousin. we’re just about the same age. we were close as kids then we weren’t, and now something new was growing in the empty space. i start doing my eyeliner. my face doesn’t look right without it. i always start from the bottom of my eye, drawing a slight line. the trick is to keep your eye open the whole time and look straight forward.
“you make doing your eyeliner look so easy,” my cousin says to me.
“yeah, i guess,” i say. the pen start to fill in the shape i’ve drawn. “i’ve been doing it a long time, so i should know by now.” my face looks at me in the mirror. slimmer, older, different. i hadn’t noticed the time passing.
jbbartram-illu
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
