IJ study archive

Molly Notkin's party: Joelle's overdose (vi)

quote

the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.) […] pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it

Context

At the overdose's peak she is "deveiled, too pretty for words" — the lethal-beauty pole of the U.H.I.D. ambiguity asserting itself exactly when the veil is off and death is closest — while the veil on the counter has become "the de-faced veil": the facelessness has migrated from wearer to cloth, which now holds only rocks.

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