How she pulls her lips into a crooked smile when she’s sad, holding the tears in her eyes so that they glisten and ripple. How soft her cheek is against mine when I whisper to her, trying to suck the smell of her shampoo into my lungs and hold it there forever. How she still wears her favorite pair of tights, the ones with the little black hearts, even though they’ve begun to rip down the inside of her knee.

How she scrunches up her nose when she laughs, and reads The Grapes of Wrath just for kicks, and wears her sexuality on a shirt like it’s a brand name and not the condemnation that others try to make it.

How she can’t make eye contact when I assure her that her flaws are too small for me to ever spot. How instead she studies the dark screen of her phone as my eyes trace the curve of her jaw and try to see the same fatal imperfections that she sees in warped reflections of herself.

Perfection.

Despite the scars that riddle the ivory skin on the inside of her wrist. Despite the days that she forces herself not to eat. Despite the pills she takes in the morning and the shots she’ll take Friday night. Despite the mess of half-forgotten parties left behind her.

All I see is perfection.