Friday, 07 December 2007

• Your Cosmetic World*

  
  

  I am not writing this to pick a fight, I am writing this because I can.

  You wake up in a room 6:30 in the morning thousands of kilometers away from home. It took you about twenty seconds before your brain loaded into consciousness from slumber that you prefer to call a beauty rest. You realize that this was the same room you have been waking up to for the most part of the last three years that you have spent in Los Banos. You stare at the ceiling and pondered about your activities for the day while you wipe off the dried drool in your face. A few moments ago it flowed freshly from the corner of your lips to the pillow like a river of goo. This is yet another day.

  You got off your bed and like a reflex action you automatically scoured the room for a mirror because you have to know if you still look good. Or at least convince yourself that you do look good. Once you've hypnotized yourself in deep Narcissism, you approach the sink to wash your face. You look at the mirror again. Lately you seemed to have a really good relationship with shiny objects because they let you check your reflection every two seconds. You wipe your face dry with a towel carefully doing that upward movement that you have learned from the stack of fashion magazines now resting in the corner of the room. It’s supposed to make your skin more firm and prevent sagging.

  You fancy to be on the cover of those glossies in the future. You'd die for it. But all you had under your name was to star in a measly karaoke flick and do some occasional ramp modeling for a proletarian jeans brand. You try to be a model. In cyberspace, your profile proclaims that you are beauteous and professes your affection for cosmetics. You even murdered some words in the process. Still you do your best to create your fantasy identity. In your obsession you even dreamt a couple of times to have achieved the power to Photoshop yourself. You immediately airbrushed yourself to plasticity until you get your desired effect. But then you wake up and you end up more depressed.

  You brush your teeth eventually until you feel your gums sting. Your teeth have to be perfectly pearl white, because you think the world out there is a giant fashion show. Never mind that the normal color of an adult human teeth is beige, you have to stand out. You only stopped brushing when you saw blood in your toothbrush. You skipped your breakfast just like the many mornings you have spent with an empty stomach. You have been an unknowing victim of anorexia and bulimia in your quest to attain the perfect figure, just like the millions of other women in America. Afterwards you go to the bathroom to take a shower. Stripped of clothes, you looked at yourself again in the mirror there. You hate your dark complexion. You hate to be referred to as a black beauty.

  You lather yourself with chemicals purported to give you a fairer complexion but you have realized by now that it does not work. You shampoo your hair with the most expensive brand you can find in the grocery. And that goes for the conditioner too. Your hair is something you are genuinely proud of, the one thing about you that is not debatable. You sometimes wish you'd wake up in a parallel universe where people have been reduced to great lumps of hair, where in there; you would be the most beautiful. But reality bites, not everything we wish comes true.

  You dry yourself and sat near the bed. You look at the clock, 7:35. You have consumed more than an hour scrubbing yourself hoping that it would kill all the melanin in your skin, but it doesn't work that way. You stood up and opened your closet and gazed at your wardrobe. You picked up an incandescent pink blouse and a pair of jeans courtesy of your sideline in the pseudo-catwalk. You don't care if pink doesn't go that good with a dark skin but you chose to wear it anyway for the day. In Paris you could have been arrested for crime against the fashion industry, but hell you are in one of the country's premiere university’s campus that puts premium in diversity. You surely are an endangered specie. Still you were not contented. You once tried to apply for the main campus but didn't make it; all the embarrassment pushed you to keep all that have transpired a secret.

  You worm your way to fit into your clothes. Then from your bag emerged your new best friends. You splattered liquid foundation all over your face to conceal every little bit of imperfection. As you gently rubbed over your cheek area you remembered your friends in high school. You cannot forget their photos in the World Wide Web. They were unquestionably mocking you. You squint at your seat at the thought of it but you realized that you can't blame them. You have ditched them for a pair of lipstick and mascara. You recall the every single instance that you stood them up. Even your former teachers who have waited for you patiently in a local food joint were not saved from this. You have even devised a list of excuses that goes from an unexpected out of town trip to a lightning fast round trip from Quezon City to back to your campus. You'd pass for a great fictionist.

  You grabbed your mascara then your eye liner. You poked them around your eyes until they impede your sight. For you, this is the definition of make-up; the more, the merrier. Then you pulled out your lipstick. You want it sultry and seductive. You have already graduated from the lip-gloss phase where you appear to have devoured a whole lechon with the oil stuck in your lips. Now you look just like a manananngal after a human meal with your bloody red kisser. You looked at the clock, its 8 am.

  You are not alarmed although you know that you are going to be late. You like to be late. You like the attention; you crave for it, especially if the attention came from the boys. You want them to burn with desire on how deliciously you have made yourself look like, though most of them think that you look like a slut. The best slut in town. You want the idea of voyeurism that’s why you have sold yourself to sites like ModeloAko.com just to proclaim your supposedly model status. You darkened your primary picture’s background there to hide the plates and kitchen utensils in the backdrop. But you forgot that most of the people now know how to use Photoshop, they’ve already blown your cover. You’ve spent hours in front of the webcam just to find your perfect angle, but it never came so you settled for the in-your-face cheek pose. The same pose your friends copied that infuriated you.

  You grabbed your kikay bag and stood near the door. You took one more gaze in the mirror until you have realized that you have done everything humanely possible to improve your looks. Right now, aside from the cosmetics, you also have friends who have no other choice but to hang out with you because you are stuck in the same college. You headed to the door and left for school. Halfway to class you have realized that you have forgotten something. You forgot to do your homework.

  *Disclaimer: Any likeness to any actual person/s, living or dead, is purely coincidental

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