Spider Eyes

by Layla Al-Bedawi

We stand shoulder to shoulder, twin dolls in the vanity mirror, painting our faces for the night. You say my eyelashes remind you of spiders and I make a face.

But you hate spiders.

You twist your frame away from our reflections to face the reality of me. Your fingers extend toward me, their tips soft as paintbrushes. Each touch, to spine, to cheek, to all my eyelids, plants a sticky thread, connecting all the parts of me. In the mirror I see patterns where before there were only pieces—a landscape, a roadmap, a web of desire.

We can be spiders together.

I laugh and make spider hands at you then, wiggling the skinny branches of my fingers at you. So many of my parts are fragile these days, snappable, drawn with a sharp charcoal pencil. Thank you for handling them with care.