Aesthetica

by Allie Rowbottom

I step back. “Don’t start with this,” I say aloud, though it’s too late. Before my eyes, my face becomes a landslide, running downhill. There’s filler under the skin, collected in the troughs. And still it falls. Doesn’t it? I can’t trust what I see, can never know what about me is real. Which laser facial designed to smooth fine lines and sun damage burned white ridges into my chin? I see them if I squint, don’t I? Which dermal filler, and how much of it, migrated from my marionette lines and changed the mobility of my mouth? It slopes sadly now, incapable of smiling. And who botched my first nose job, who botched my second? Which strip-mall med spa, which injector, aesthetician, plastic surgeon—and there have been many—left a lip lift scar in the middle of my face?

Ravaging the body