the chapstick that ruined my life

Recently, I looked back at pictures of myself from fifth grade. When I was little, like 10ish years old, maybe, my mom gifted me this Coca-Cola chapstick. I put it on, and a week or so after wearing it regularly, the skin on my upper and lower lips got really badly dry and began to hurt. Granted, this issue with my skin may not have been from the chapstick at all, but from my constant licking my lips as if I were some idiot gecko or something. However, this idea I denied, and blamed it all on the chapstick to spare myself from such embarrassment. Whatever the cause, though, I was now plagued with a horrible dark ring around my mouth.

I remember that I was over at my family friends' house one day, and they had a little girl who must have been 3 or 4 years old at this point. She looked up at me and said, "Wow, you have a mustache!" At first, I thought she was just talking about the baby hairs that everyone has on their upper lips, so I told her that she had little hairs, too. I told myself, even at a young age, that the little hairs were not something that people had to be ashamed of. However, in a few moments afterwards, I wrinkled into my own skin having realized that she was not talking about the innocent hair. Did I really look like I had a mustache?

At another instance, I had just bought an orange juice from my school cafeteria. I was walking around the hallway and opened it up to take a sip. Shortly after placing it on my mouth, it splashed up to my upper lip and stung it badly. I hadn't thought the citric acid would hurt, and I felt embarrassed now that I was reminded of my broken skin.

Another day, I was sitting alone in my bedroom. My mom had given me Blistex among other medicated chapsticks in hopes that it would make my lips go back to normal. I sat there and stretched my face out in the mirror, only for it to break apart painfully. I had felt my "mustache" only to find how rough it felt, as if I was rubbing the sidewalk outside. I sat there, and I'll admit that I just cried, fearing it would never go away. No matter how much petroleum jelly or medicated creams I put on it, they would only highlight my big disgust in a glossy coat.

To this day, I'm left with discolored and dark skin on my upper lip where beauty typically wishes it were light. It haunts me. It's just another constant flaw that I can pick at and hurt. Sometimes I stare in the mirror and just look at it for minutes on end, wishing I could somehow telepathically make it disappear. I single out every little hair that adds to its discolored appearance and I stretch my lips down to avoid a shadow from my nose. But what can I do? No power of mine will fix this, and it is in reality not at all any issue. But for me, I am bothered.

stay good.