Face Value

Passing lights streak through my vision, but they blur through a kaleidoscope of thoughts. I hear you ask what’s on my mind, but a smile, an elusive shrug, is all the explanation I offer. It’s best we just enjoy the car ride, carry on in conversational tones, and fill in the blanks to “How was your day?” with a funny story, the latest drama, and a rerun of the same old, tired exchanges.

It’s best you glance me over, sum me up, and give me a blanket rating — a Face Value that lands somewhere between one and ten. Because, you’d never admit it, but all you really want is a leggy chick with a pretty face. It’s best you go on believing that you’ve wandered the open highways of my mind, that I’m sweet like peaches in summertime — a simple, southern sweetheart with an accommodating smile and a voice that trails on like an afterthought, a girl you can take home to your mama. You think you want to see my naked mind, to strip back all the complicated layers. But it’s best you never realize you can’t handle the unspoken conversations that linger in the fringes of the girl I secretly love to be.

It’s best you believe I’ve got my daddy’s views on politics, and my mama’s views on religion. When you give voice to your black-and-white thoughts, it’s best you believe I worship every golden pearl that falls from your God-fearing lips. And although contradiction hovers in the corners of my mind, watching intently through the holes in your argument, it’s best I channel my views into a leatherbound book locked securely in a wooden box beneath my bed. It’s not worth the darkening glare, the biting reply. Or worse, the condescending smirk that says: “It’s cute that you believe that.”

As we navigate through crooked streets, I’ll watch the passing scenery and let you interpret my silence through your own clouded expression. And when you drop me off at my front door, it’s best you kiss me goodnight and leave me to wander through my kaleidoscope of thoughts.