Soledad, toes to foam.

These days I am as sensitive as the rainbowed film of a soap bubble. The tiniest hint of negativity, and my cadence bursts into a million frothy tears. To avoid these spells, I have become acutely aware of doing anything someone might find odd. It is a curious line to toe when all of my lonely compulsions are of the oddest sort. As I wandered through a closed shopping mall tonight, the inane recorded piano music searing into me, I had my excuse ready for any concerned security guard... "I was shopping for a father's day gift. Looks like I've finally taken procrastination too far."

Before my empty-handed, locked door shopping trip, I traipsed through the cold sand of Arroyo Beach to try and catch the sunset while it still burned in the sky. Too late, the sky was already fading into a dusty blue. Instead of comforting me, this spontaneous trip seemed to freeze my grief to my bones. Wrapping myself in salt and biting winds only conjures up contrastingly warm memories from beach trips long gone; a wet bathing suit snap, the bitter taste of the wet ends of my hair, a toddling version of my sister, standing tiny and puzzled next to a motor boat, skin glowing with youth and too much sun.

On days like this, I begin to forget what I look like. After work, I strip my uncomfortably eclectic clothes off of my body and put on unidentifiably drab sweatshirts and jeans. This is the uniform most suited for comfortable isolation... no one's eyelashes whisper in my direction, and below the radar I fly. I go hours without speaking, and when I look in the mirror I am often surprised that I haven't transformed into the drooping, stagnant creature my self esteem is convinced of. The same dark eyes stare back at me with their hardened gaze, my lips are terse, and my cheeks are still faintly dusted with this morning's powdered blush.