Once upon a time, the bespectacled Mr. X decided to go from plastic specs to ones with THEM SILICONE NOSE PAD THINGIES!

(This was KINDA a big deal in his life–well… to his fam and friends, anyway–coz he was a staunch “CHILD OF THE 80s” (TM).

Ergo, as soon as he got some lovely horn-rimmed helpers, everyone in his life breathed a sigh of relief… er, they said “Awesome possum, man!”

(Yes, he’d heard LOTS about his 80s ways. I digress. Anyway…!)

So he gets them, yada yada, and one day, he notices a blemish starting under The Nose Pad of DOOM (TM)!

Even tho he was TOTALLY scrupulous about best-germ-care-practices and the like. (“And I ain’t no teen anymore, man! What is up with this “I need Clearasil in my 40s” thing??)

Anyway, he’s all “Um, ok, Stridex Rapid Clearing Pads, here we come!”

And he did.

For days.

For WEEKS.

He cleaned both nose pad and surrounding nose real estateness for over TWO MONTHS.

The blemish-busting was not doing its job!

Or was it?

Was it, instead, that it was slowing the spread of them “Germies” — aka doing its job — but that Mr. X hadn’t given the thing a chance to breathe?

So…

Another month.

(Poof, Poooof, POOOF!)

It got in all the breathing it wanted.

Nothing changed.

Until he visited someone a bit longer in the tooth, who said:

“Yo, bro…how can it LEAVE when it has no place to GO?

That silicone PAD just serves to make it MAD…”

And dear Mr. X sat straight up and said

“YO, I’VE BEEN HAD!”

The silicone pad had just kept it SMALL.

But it also prevented it from leaving at ALL.

It was no longer “blemish” but a full-on whitehead.

“It may have sunk down, but it SURELY ain’t DEAD!”

The friend (who had gotten him into rhyming…

RAP BATTLE MODE (to his OUCHES…)

said

“Yo, you KNOW all I do ain’t just sit on some couches!”

(Oh, dear. Might a kindly colleague or HOLY SPIRIT please confiscate the keyboard from Fair Sally before she… gets fired from a bowling alley (??? hey, it rhymed! Hmph. Bowling rocks, tho.)

SO, long story short… the silicone pad prevented one problem but caused another.

Had the blemish “gotten less impressionable?” Yep. Had it “developed a thick skin?” Yep.

But still the contagion grew, but… inwardly. Not too much outward display of what was going on UNDER the surface.

This isn’t about acne, of course.

It’s about the aftermath of, like… abuse and divorce.

Never assume that because you (them?) ain’t cryin…

That y’all are “all better,” coz inside might be DYIN’.

*a Public Service Announcement about Taking Care of BIZNess (every day!)

instead of well, like… “wishing”

your

pain

away… *

Um, ok, then. Someone apparently has quite a hankering (and/or escape-mechanism-“assisted” desire) to work on a song or three, methinks!

Hope you’re having a FAB u lous weekend

(and stay away from the drinks!)

LOVE,

sb

<3

:))