Commentary

my second face, my damn reflection

We always meet when I'm defeated

You tear me up all of the time

My second face, don't wanna listen

We always meet without permission

Hey, skinny skinny

Don't you think about the future

Hey, skinny skinny

Too bad (too bad)

Hey, skinny skinny

Stop your thinking 'bout tomorrow

You'll never make it like that (too bad)

You tear me up all of the time

• skinny skinny, ashton irwin

I’m pretty tired, you know, of people commenting. 

The things they say… 

One or two, well, that didn’t really get to- it was just one or two people out of so many- but then those comments started catching on and before I knew it, Paul and Liana were pulling me away from my computer, telling me to stay away from the comment sections, that they would only hurt me, mess with my head. 

That didn’t stop me from looking at them, reading the messages people left me, the ones that hooked under my skin between my ribs and my heart and pulled me to pieces, all the while knowing I’d have to pretend to keep it together. For who? For why? For them. So that they could have their little shows. So I read and read and then I pretended I never saw a thing, never saw the fishhook comments and never fell into their open jaw traps. Bear traps, wide open, gaping and waiting for me to slip and get chomped into sliced human pieces, just like they want. Maybe just like you want. Then again, I’ve never known what you want. Once upon a time, though, I could have sworn up and down that you wanted to spend time with me. Maybe not love me, I don’t think you ever went quite that far, but I did think you liked being around me. I thought, see, there was this one time where we were sitting somewhere, I’m not sure where, exactly, and you were beside me and you handed me your hand and I looped my fingers through yours and then, for a minute, I guess I had what people call a flash into the future. 

You were there, and, to be honest, that’s more than I could say for other people. They weren’t there with me in the flash forwards, just the in the moments and sometimes in the minutes of the past but you, I guess there was always something about you that made me think you’d stay. I know why you couldn’t, of course I do, and I’d never blame you, never, really, I wouldn’t, but the bad thing about that is that it never leaves my chest that it was something I did. Deeper, down below that feeling, I sort of know it wasn’t anything I did, but the other feeling is stronger than the true one and honestly I always fall into what I think instead of what I know, which brings me all the way back around to my comments. They’re really getting out of hand and I’m not sure what to do because at one point, right, I could laugh and move on, but now I’m starting to get it. Why they hate me, why they know I’m probably lying to the whole world, why they want to ruin me by digging up things I said when I was thirteen, twelve, eleven, even younger than that. I woke up yesterday and I went to the bathroom and I put my hands on the sink and it was so cold and I usually, you remember, I usually love that feeling because it wakes me up, all the way to my bones. Yesterday, though, something else got to me before the cold did, and that woke me up with such a bad shock that the temperature didn’t matter, not anymore. 

I don’t like to look in the mirror anymore. It’s the same mirror I’ve always had, the one we used to brush our teeth in front of, the one we took those pictures in, the one that broke yesterday when I threw my shampoo bottle from the shower and cracked it, all the way down the middle, after I saw myself and realized, well, those comments are getting more true and more true by the minute. I’m not any different from you, you know, there’s nothing great or talented about me that I should have all this, the house, the movies, the fame and the lights. I wake up morning and morning and put on my shoes, make my own bed, and yet I’m wondering now if I do anything for myself at all. I don’t know. I really don’t. I just know I miss you and I hate to say it because I know, probably, you don’t miss me too and I’m not writing this so you’ll write me back and say what I want you too, I’m just writing because when I looked in the mirror yesterday I realized how lonely I look, how cold my eyes have gone, how pallid my face has turned. It’s like the comments, and the articles, and the people yelling things at me while I walk by, have creeped their way, bit by bit, into my bloodstream and slowly turned me into what they believe me to be. Is that possible, you think? 

I don’t want to change for them, but they have a way of convincing… 

It’s like I hear the worst possible things about me on replay, all day, all the ways and no matter which way I go, which way I look. And Paul and Liana, they did try to warn me this would happen they did try to get me off the comments, the forums, the whole anti-me platforms, but as usual, I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I don’t why, out of all the wonderful and kind things people have to say about me, why I look for the bad ones. Am I trying to prove to myself that if other people say it about me, it must be true? This is another reason I wish you were here. You would have helped me sort this out, or at least you would have told me it didn’t matter and sometimes? I need someone to tell me it doesn’t matter, because in the moment it matters to the point that nothing else does. Um, I’m gonna ask how you are now, because I don’t know what else to say. I’m trying so hard to keep from reading the comments on the latest trailer for that darn movie we’re doing this fall and, yeah, I just want to know how you are. Do you still eat salami with your ice cream? I used to think that was the cutest thing, really, and I was always trying to find ways to get food for you; I know you like to get new kinds. I remember one time, Paul told me I needed to get back in time for the next scene we were doing, but I was out with you and we went to go get ice cream and then it started raining and we got stuck out at that park and we laughed and laughed but then I stopped and you kept laughing and I watched you and then you stuttered to stop and we just looked at each other for the longest time. That doesn’t have anything to do with food, I just wanted to tell you I still think about that a lot. 

If you haven’t realized yet, I think about you in particular a lot. I saved all the notes you passed me and I put them in a big box under my bed; they’re slightly crinkled around the edges but when I think of them as crinkles from smiling, like an old person gets, I don’t feel so bad about it. I take those notes out and I read them while I read the comments, because if I read yours for long enough, I start to hear your voice again. I know that’s not something you want to hear right now, but it’s true, and while I’m writing the truth, I want you to be part of it. 

I wonder if you’d like who I see in the mirror, or if you’d see what I see. 

I know you didn’t leave me because of how I look but sometimes the comments, the things people say about us, they make me start thinking… well, I already told you about that. I don’t know what else there is to say, but I do hope you’ll consider coming to see me. I left some tickets in the envelope for you, I’m sure you’ve seen those by now, and I wanted to see you but I knew I couldn’t get just you and so I thought you could bring some friends along. The movie should be nice, come find me when it’s over. I think I’ll borrow that little mirror you always carry around in your purse, the one with silver and, yeah, you know which one I mean. I think I’ll borrow that one for a second, cause I wanna see myself through someone else’s eyes for a change. Only this time, hopefully, that someone won’t be hiding behind a name they picked for the purpose of attacking. Hopefully this time that person won’t be a hoard against me, it’ll just be you for me, and maybe you’ll tell me a few things to counter the comments I get after the movie is all out. I’m sure I’ll need that, and I’ll somehow, no matter how much I say otherwise, need you too. Not just the words, however lovely they are, but I’ll need the way I get to look at you when all is quiet, when you’re watching a movie and you’re getting so excited to tell me everything you know about what happened while they filmed it. Do you know, I love your trivia? I hope you do. I hope you know it all, even when I don’t.