pimples raze the ones that showed up when i was going through puberty were small insults to the skin. they were almost invisible. i knew they were there, even if no one else did. this woman came over to our house one night. my fake aunt or my mom knew her from work. they were both thinking about trying whatever line of skincare products she was selling on the side. she had dark hair and a kind face. she was wearing a blazer. she explained what all the different creams and peels did. no one wanted to give up their skin for a test run, so they volunteered my thirteen-year-old face. her soft hands made me a mask out of green clay and good intentions. she told me to wash it off in twenty minutes. everyone laughed at how stupid i looked, but the next day every small-scale zit i had was gone. i asked my mom if we could get some of the green stuff. she said it was too expensive. she didn't need it anyway. her face was fine. my skin got meaner when i turned fourteen. i never broke out the way some kids did, but sometimes something big and red would show up in the middle of my forehead and just hang there. the first one hurt when i touched it. i didn't want to wait for it to form a pustule. i grabbed a white hand towel and scrubbed my skin until it bled. i made it worse to make it go away. i got my dad's girlfriend to teach me about makeup. i hid what i did to myself with green and flesh-tinted cover stick, and for the next few days i looked like something out of a low-budget horror film. a monster trying to cover my scars and almost pulling it off. just like always. 220409 what's it to you? who go blather from