Purart Studio

Recently, I was standing outside my son’s classroom waiting to talk to his teacher. I stood on one side of the hallway, not even close to the center. At some point, a man came walking along. I was standing right in his path, but the hallway was empty, so I logically expected him to swerve around me. Instead he kept walking right toward me, got to me, and stopped, as if waiting for me to get out of his way. I didn’t; I just smiled politely at him. He finally walked around me, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t leapt out of his manly path.

I also work at a college campus. I smack shoulders sometimes, but I find that if I stare straight ahead and follow the advice below, people get the heck out of the way.

Confirmed. I once had to rush back inside a convention hall as the con was closing in order to a retrieve a sick friend’s medication, and I didn’t understand why people in the crowd were jumping out of my way (literally—one guy vaulted a table) until I realized I was dressed as the Winter Soldier and doing the Murder Walk because that’s just how I walk in those boots. I got the meds, got out, and made a mental note.

And one day you’ll remember how her misplaced pigments Used to smear across your entire essence. You’ll remember the way her mascara would flake off into the cracks between your lips, And how her eyeshadow dusted your cheeks. You’ll recall her lipstick on the birdwing bones of your neck, And her foundation in the dips of your shoulder. You’ll see again the smudges of her eyeliner on your chest And her still-wet nail polish along the lines of your palms. One day you’ll forget her face, And find only blurry edges around her features, But you won’t ever forget How beautiful you felt With her colors wrapped around you in all the wrong places.