Just the Tip
Ways I would describe my nose:
• A witchy appendage
• A testimony to my Italian genes—too bad I’ve never been to Italy
• Eye-poker-out-er-ly long
• An ever-present flesh protrusion my brain has fought hard to learn to ignore
• An overripe strawberry
• A very librarian-esque feature: perfect for perching glasses on
• A very bookworm-esque feature: perfect for shoving into books
• Always cold on the end
• A constant reminder to my mother of my father, the man she divorced twenty-five years ago
• My most defining feature (besides the tits)
In this, my nose, I am not to blame. I can turn and point very firmly to the exact source of my malady: my father, and his father before him. Who knows, (whose nose? this nose) down the line, back through time and age, it exists. The nose skipped my siblings and was almost lost to the history books until it came back with a vengeance and landed on me, the youngest child. Turn my father, grandfather, and me to the side and we three sport the same profile. My 80-year-old grandfather wears it better. This nose remains sure testament to my grandfather’s lineage, try though he might to ignore the feminine influences and presence in his family line. Sorry, Grandpa, but guess what? My brother may be the prodigal son, but I have the prodigal nose.
Sometimes I practice snipping off the end of my nose with my fingers. Snip, snip, just the tip. That’s all I need gone, the rest can stay. In the kitchen with my mother once, I mused aloud having something done about it, and she turned and surveyed me and said, “It wouldn’t be that hard.”
What she meant was: you’re beautiful just the way you are. What she meant was, people will love you in spite of—because of!—your nose. What she said was: your bone structure is fine—it’s just the extra blob on the end that pushes it too far. And it really does just go out too far (see: always cold on the end). Noses are such an important part of faces, beauty, worth. I never worry about being “pretty.”
It would be a simple enough surgery. There would be no shaving down of bone, no sawing into my face to rid me of the excess, no white dust whirling into the air around the surgeon’s face as he operated the handheld buffing tool over my prone form. The surgeon, barely a blood splatter dotting his hospital blues, would come out to greet my mother after it was done and he’d shake her hand and smile and say, “we got it. We got it all.” And my mother would smile back, eyes bright with just the barest relief of tears, cup her hand over her own perfect nose and thank him, thank him.
But would my father thank me, at New Year’s dinner, because my mother and our Roman Catholic family have dibs on all Christian holidays even if we rarely attend Mass anymore. What would my father say when a once-familiar face wasn’t quite so familiar anymore?
Snip, snip, just the tip. I’d heal fast. Give me some ibuprofen and a week’s vacation and I’d be back at work, breathing through my mouth. As I walked past, people would turn and survey me, much as my mother had, and they would tap their noses or their top lips with their pointer fingers and say, “Hmmm…there is something different about you, but I can’t quite place it.” Snip, snip, just the tip. I would smile and then grimace but it would be worth it to sashay away, saying, “Oh, you know, just got a trim.”
Paige M. Ferro is a queer writer living in Bend, OR. By day she works as the Adult Programs Specialist with Deschutes Public Library. When she is not reading too many books at once or talking to herself in coffee shops, she can also be found wandering outside, dabbling in the Tarot, and pulling cat hair off her various sweaters.