She told me that women like
men with grizzled,
*******
faces, men with scars
men with eyepatches
men with very unkempt beards
Mouths that snarl
when it’s time to smile
Eyes that are like eggs buried in
a nest of wrinkles
Noses that are never straight
And the jaw,
oh the jaw has to be big
square
like a drawer
A man’s face must have a chin
that can take sledgehammers

that’s why the luckiest woman
in the world
was Belle
from The Beauty and The Beast.
That was a real man, The Beast.
although the story is a tragic one
because in the
end he turns
into a charming prince
with smooth face and polished
features.

“What a *******,” she said. “If only
he stayed a beast…”

Meanwhile I think about
myself
the most grizzly feature about
my face is the mad
eyestrain I developed
because of my job, after staring
at monitors in a dark room for
all those years and then coming home
to stare at another monitor.
it is now impossible for me to get
outside and keep my eyes
open like a normal person. I die if I
don’t strain them as hard as I
can. Sunglasses don’t even help.
and there’s also the dark
circles below my eyes
they’re not even purple as I’ve seen
in other people

“They have the texture of the
skin around the *******,” she said,
laughing.

She was right.

She was also right when she pointed
out that if you can’t grow
a beard by the time you’re
twenty you’ll never grow a proper
beard.

“****,” I said. “Guess I’ll never
be a beast.”

“It’s never too late to get your
face ****** up
though,” she said. “You
just need
to hang around
the right people.”

“Such as your dad?” I said.

“Oh, *******,” she said,
dragging the blanket
over her *******.