From a young age I’ve been spoon-fed cyanide in the form of pretty dresses and obedient smiles. In the form of my parent’s vocal belief that children should be seen and not heard. In the form of being told that you don’t have a valid opinion until you have a graduate degree. As if the day before you have the piece of paper and the day after will suddenly change you in some unimaginable way. I was taught not to scream and interject into a conversation if I wasn’t invited. I was taught not to do these things because they just don’t look right.
I’ve been a visual learner for my entire life and I think that might be because I was conditioned from a young age to understand that what you see is what you get, or more appropriately what you should accept with a fragile smile and a pretty nod.
Considering how I was raised I slipped easily into society easily like a fish into water. Everything about it made sense. If you look pretty than you must be pretty, on the inside and out. Humor, intelligence, and kindness are not traits you can assign to yourself but labels that you’re shoved and warped to fit into. It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect, only if you appear that way.
I’ve learned to understand the language of beauty. I think everyone understands it, at least on some level, but speaking it is a privilege milked for all its worth. Pretty faces distract from the sharp and ugly words they speak. They cover their mistakes with well-placed laughs and empty smiles. They can wear their values like clothes, easily put on or taken off depending on who's watching. 
I’ve learned that what you see is much more important than what is there. If you yell smoke, there might not be a fire but you might have managed to call over the fire fighters.
I used to have a problem with make up. In my mind putting on makeup meant you were saying that you weren’t pretty enough without it, that you weren’t good enough without it. As I grew up it became extremely simple: we live in a world where you are not enough. A timely act of kindness accompanied by a pleasing smile is much better than a genuine one.
It makes perfect sense that people paint on their faces. I wish we lived in a world where your personality and good deeds mattered more than your hair and facial features, but as it is we live in a world where beauty isn’t an extension of your personality but rather the painting hiding the canvas.
As long as I shall live I will always resent my sister. I will always resent the girl who is my best friend, my biggest supporter, and my closest confidant. I wish I had a good reason for doing it, but it’s extremely simple: my sister is gorgeous and I’m not.
I have the gross disadvantage of being born in a time and place where being pretty and good looking is equivalent to speaking a language. There are different levels of competency, but if you’re fluent and can speak it with others everything will be easier. And as with most languages, being a native speaker makes learning significantly easier.
“La, will you take me to the grocery store?”
“Ok, but let me change.”
“You look fine.” And in her running shorts and pajama top she’d never looked more stunning.
She gave me a skeptical look and responded, “It doesn’t look right,” while on her way up the stairs to change.
In exchange for honesty she elected for a short dress and heavy eyeliner. And once her face was perfectly painted on, we went.
When my mom and dad have people over they make us dress up. With our brightly colored dresses my sister and I go downstairs with our well-tuned smiles and repertoire of laughs and generic comments ready to be played, like a music one uses to fall asleep to. I used to think about screaming during one of my parents dinner parties, just to see what would happen. I don’t think they would notice, because if I did, it would look the same as my perfected smile.
Living in a world where image is truth, it’s easy to become a shadow for someone like my sister. With a contagious happiness and outgoing personality I became an unnecessary accessory to her outfit.
Upon meeting Laura the usual reaction is to tell my parents, “Your daughter is so beautiful and poised. She’s so grown up now. So beautiful. Both of them.” Added as an afterthought, that’s what I became. My sister first with a sunny laugh and me a few steps behind with a dim smile.
These adults created alternate realities while at our house, but one thing that was always true was my sister’s beauty. And since people dictate who you are, the more people who say something the more true it becomes. So the alternate realities leaked into the real one until my sister was the pretty and social one and I was her sister.

I’m awkward. I trip over my words like strategically placed banana peels and I still struggle to continue conversations that I find fake and superficial. I’ve never had to learn, my sister is either under the spotlight or I’m yanked out from under it.
My sister doesn’t help. When adults ask me the customary questions such as, “How old are you? What grade are you in? How’s school? What’s your favorite subject?” Often times my sister cuts me off to talk about me. Sometimes she doesn’t bother and just starts talking about herself. The adults don’t notice because my sister speaks the language of beauty. At least, I hope they don’t notice and are simply being enchanted by the pretty face, but if we’re being perfectly honest the adults would rather talk to her.
When I ask her why she does that she tells me that I looked uncomfortable, that I looked awkward. It doesn’t matter that I am in fact very comfortable in my answers to those black and white questions. My sister says I look awkward and so I am awkward.
    I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I end and who everyone else thinks I am begins. I’m not even sure there’s a difference, or if there is a difference if it matters. 
My whole life I’ve been feeding myself cyanide in the form pretty smiles and well crafted outfits. In the form of speaking when spoken to and allowing my sister to commandeer a conversation. In the form of letting a pleasing smile mean more than a genuine one. In the form of looking in a mirror and wishing I saw my sister.
And for my whole life I’ve been feeding others cyanide in the hopes that we can all choke it down together until someone has to courage to stick their fingers down their throat and throw it up.