I Knew Your Face

I knew your face.

I knew your face better than anybody else in the world - better than your father, better than your brother, better than yourself. I knew every line, every curve, every gentle movement beneath your skin. I could trace over your face with my eyes closed and know exactly where my finger was.

I thought you knew my face too.

You asked me who I was - looking at me with eyes I didn't know sunken into a face I barely recognized. Your cheeks were flushed red, your lips swollen and wet with alcohol, your eyes barely opened and a disgusting crimson - definitely not the face I knew. And through those eyes, I guess you couldn't recognize my face. But somehow, I doubt that you would've recognized my face even if your eyes weren't bloodshot and your system not polluted with alcohol you would've recognized my face. You'd forgotten completely about me - about the girl who once knew your face.

I knew your face from all those nights, from all those mornings, and from all those beautiful days. I knew the way it looked when the first rays of sunlight hit it after being filtered through your blue blinds. I knew the way it stirred and twitched gently, your lips always slightly curving up as though you always wanted to smile but never did.

I knew the way your eyes appeared when you raised your eyelids slowly, the way the green was slowly revealed to me, like a secret present unwrapping itself. I knew the way your eyes sparkled when the dusty sunlight cast a glow in the room, and the way they danced when your lips revealed your smile.

I knew the way your skin felt beneath my finger, the way your bones and muscles resided beneath. I could draw your face from my memory by dipping my finger into paint and tracing your face on canvas. I can see you now in my head, every part of your face in the sun.

I knew your face at night too, and I can see that as well. I knew the way the light from your desktop would cast shadows on your features. I knew the way your skin tone seemed a bit different in the fake light. I knew the way it looked down or up at me, flushed and joyous, when you were completing me with you.

And I knew it when I painted it, when I put you into costume. I knew it when I took the brush and dipped in paint and drew lines across your face. I knew the way the brush slid across your skin to leave a trail of blue, white, black, or whatever color I'd chosen. I knew what colors and what lines would make certain parts of your face stand out - make you the perfect Wolverine*.

I knew the way your eyelids would flutter a little when I painted over them, the way your lips would slightly shake in hidden laughter. I knew the way you tried not to squirm when I made you up, brushing the colors onto your face, but always did. I knew exactly what you would look like when I was done painting and you opened your eyes - I knew my canvas well.

I knew your face well, and I loved it. Loved the way it felt against my palms when I cupped it in my hands. Loved the way it made me feel so complete when you pressed it against mine. Loved the fact that I knew it so well. I loved you.

But now? Now that the world knows your face? I don't think I know it anymore. The face in the bar, drunk and disoriented, was not the face I once held, touched, or painted. The face on TV, so mysterious yet so alluring and appealing, is not the face that I used to wake up to. The face so far away, in a glittery world you were supposed to bring me in, but never did, is no longer a face I can trace easily.

And so I wonder,

Did I ever know your face at all?

*Note: Wolverine was Jeff's persona in OMEGA [his and Matt's Indy Fed]