I think I could remember your face forever. I am a scientist, I am analytical, I am a nightmare of charts and lists and schedules. I have a thousand disorders that make me the envy of every other student in my high school, yet drove me over the brink of insanity long before I ever knew they existed. God was merciful when he did not answer my prayer to die, but I shall ever be a scientist, tightly-lined geometry on graph paper.
Emaleigh spells her name like a rebel, but it wasn't her choice. There have been fifty-seven people who have spelled it wrong while I was watching, and forty-two who pronounced it incorrectly. Emaleigh says she's used to it and doesn't mind anymore, but I imagine brainwashing and reteaching them so they are never, ever wrong again.
I keep charts of unnecessary things, like the number of times I dropped my toothbrush into the sink on Sundays for the past year, or how many red trucks drive down my street on average per day. All my schoolwork is done fourteen hours in advance, and if that time isn't possible then I take no breaks until it is complete. Saturdays without friends are spent sitting in the middle of the yard, my legs crossed as evenly as my imperfect body can get, counting red trucks until someone picks me up and takes me inside.
But I think I could remember your face forever. I cried thirty-three times trying to keep from charting out your features, and another fourteen times when I couldn't remember some minute detail. I have a folder with the face of every person I've ever known, and nobody knows about it because they would lock me up or shoot me or be afraid of me. I live with the constant fear of forgetting, or losing, or being without something I need, and in order to combat this fear I must chart everything out. Everything must be listed and graphed mathematically so it always makes sense.
Emaleigh is a little angel with black clothes, and she works sporadically, without lists or charts, relying purely on her memory. She wore her hair down 5/16ths of the second semester of her junior year, and 18% of the time she spent outside she wore Converse high tops that didn't match the red of her vibrantly dyed hair. She changes her look so unpredictably often that all my charts of her will never be accurate. Sometimes I think she does it on purpose just to increase the level of discomfort she bestows upon me.
I spent forty-six minutes tying my shoes so that they matched, and it took me twenty-eight minutes to shave my head when I couldn't get my hair to be even. Father lectured me for seventeen minutes and Mother cried for four, but I had that much less to worry about. I recharted my face.
You don't know why I watch you as much as I do, but I love the amount of simplicity you carry. The consistency you give off is attractive, it is beautiful, it is comforting. I think I could remember your face forever, and I would never have to chart it out because you are just there in my mind, a picture, a never-changing idol of personal imperfection.
Emaleigh laughs when she turns in an assignment late or even completely forgets about it. She ties her hair with a different colored hairtie every day of the week, but is never constistant on which color belongs to which day. She cries when there is nothing to cry about and always puts off her homework until the hour before it's due. One day she painted her nails each a different shade of blue and left a streak of polish up her leg. It took her sixty-one seconds to realize my distress, and told me that she liked my hair better short anyway.
I rewrote and recounted my 2000 word paper until it was exactly 2000 words, and my English teacher gave me a low grade for lack of creativity. In art, all my work is geometrically perfect, and in math I am never, ever wrong. I have started to shave my head every morning, which removes another seventeen minutes from my previous alarm. Everything is tightly bound in uncrossable wires, everything is a map, everything is a Roman road. I have never been praised for my poetic ability, because I do not understand metaphors, and yet at times they are all I can speak in. I am a horror to myself, with my inconsistent tendencies that I cannot fix no matter how many steps I take to get there. The temptation to control the numbers on the scale is terrifying, but they made me promise not to go there.
I think I could remember your face forever, even if they took you away and never brought you back, I think I would still remember your face. I think I would remember the way you're always smiling, the way you always look like you're waiting for me. It's strange to think that you would wait for me, but I am never late because I control my time just like I control all the other numbers.
And you know... I think I love you. Love is irrational, and unconditional love even more so, but you have always shown me unconditional love and it makes sense for you to do that. You're beautiful in all the ways I don't know how to explain. I have never been good with words. Emaleigh loves like a beating heart. She said that to me herself.
I think I could remember your face forever.
