No Face To Say It - Angie Johnson

Art Credit: Angie Johnson

Facial expressions don’t come naturally to me.

They’re a song I try to sing but never learned the lyrics to.

My face is an opaque wall, blank and bare and ever-cold.

I grin when I know I should, but it looks like a monkey baring its teeth.

I frown when I know I should, but it looks vacant, insincere, mocking.

I’ve been told I don’t seem like an emotional person. Yet, I am.

Emotion stays with me constantly. Cruel, kind, even both, always.

I just don’t have the face to say it.

Emotion is in the shakiness, the dizziness, the burning

Pacing, waiting, as panic closes its fist around my chest,

Struck by suspicion that things will go horribly wrong.

Emotion is in the nights I lie awake, begging the stars

To watch out for the stray cats outside, to guide them

Away from cars, from dogs, from people, from death.

Emotion is in the million tiny rituals I do every day,

Trying to keep panic quiet, bartering, pleading,

Throwing glass into its belly like offerings.

Emotion is in the slowed breaths as a mist, cold, lulling,

Flows through me after the storm, when it seems like, maybe,

Something, somewhere, will be okay after all.

Emotion is in the giddiness, the prancing, the tickle in my bones,

When I can’t stop thinking about something, or someone, dear,

The very thought lighting candles I never knew could be lit.

Emotion is in the thrumming in my heart, the buzz,

When I look at the sky on a clear night, and see loving, gentle infinity

Staring down at me with the same curiosity.

Where I feel emotion in all its lights and colors, people see a wall.

I still wear a mask when I go out. I like that it hides my face.

People have asked me to take it off so they can see my smile.

I don’t know how to tell them the smile they want isn’t there.

My face isn’t any more expressive than a mask.

Angie Johnson is a sophomore majoring in English Literature at Fresno State, hoping to work in publishing or librarianship in the future. She has been writing short stories and poetry since she knew how, and was published in Fresno State’s Spectrum anthology in high school. Her favorite genres include fantasy, historical fiction, and creative nonfiction, and sometimes she enjoys drawing illustrations to go with. She loves filling notebooks with messy writing and playing with her many siblings.