whole - 2010

written by Stephanie Picher on September 5, 2010


i see my face in tiny, square segments in a small, green hand mirror, never looking at my face as a whole. just parts. eyes, my nose, cheeks, scars. its a theme in my life, scars, and the small parts of me being meaningless, insignificant parts of an uncertain whole. i feel like i have said this all before. i feel as though i say it all the time, or maybe i never stop saying it at all. as if i chant it like a mantra on a constant loop... parts of a whole... scars. its become overused material scrapped from the final cut of the script because its not good enough or because its too predictable. everybody lies and everybody suffers and its cliche at this point. no one is buying that material anymore. the interesting stuff, i believe, must come from the rare individual who smiles and stretches upon waking, feeling eternally grateful for the gift of the new day before jumping out of bed and dancing to the kitchen to make an IHOP style breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs.

its a fucking joke, and it is as unlikely as Jesus himself. it is a fallacy. a concept that i dont buy into. "happy" is a corporate strategy. seriously, i think that there is actually a perfume called "Happy". they are fucking bottling that shit up nowadays, and we, the insecure, miserable, and robotic public eat it up. we consume. consumers. we believe on some level that we can buy the traits and ideals that we lack, and sometimes we actually can. can't stand your face? just buy a new one! too fat? have your stomach redirected to a tiny pouch! surgery, lighting, clothing, make-up, shake weights, protein shakes... its all an illusion. but i am SO buying into that illusion if it means that i can look at my whole face in the mirror, instead of just one inch squares, just parts of an unknown whole.