I squeezed something strange out of my face today.

It was a crazy day, working on the train. I was rolling around on the ground, in all the sawdust and splinters and snipped off staples, painting the wheels light grey and dark grey. I was so tired my hands were shaking.

So I took a bathroom break.

When I take bathroom breaks, it's not necessarily because I have to go to the bathroom. Most of the time, I just need a moment to myself.

Perhaps to adjust my underpants. Perhaps just to splash some water on my face. Perhaps just to sit on the toilet seat without pulling down my pants, and recollect my cool.

So I went to the bathroom.

Tried to pee, for old time's sake. Washed my hands. Did a brisk inspection of my face for forming pimples, as I usually do.

That morning I had noticed a rather firm lump near my ear. You know the kind, where it feels like a massive pimple is starting, but nothing has surfaced.

It felt...strange, though.

I looked, but it was mostly hidden by the wisps of hairs around my ears.

So I gave it a careful squeeze.

I swear to the powers that be that this sucker made an audible crack, and something thrust out of my jaw, just in front of my ear.

I tried to look. It looked like the biggest blackhead known to man.

I poked it with my finger.

It was hard.

It stuck out way further and thicker than any blackhead I had experienced before.

I squeezed it again. It refused to move. Blood started to ooze out of my skull.

I squeezed it again, harder, ruthlessly.

It oozed out of it's hole, twice as long as it was before.

I had to take a moment to blot the blood.

I poked it with my finger again, thinking to brush it the rest of the way out of my flesh, but it wouldn't move.

I had to break the fucking thing off my face.

YOU HEARD ME. I broke a blackhead off, because it was too big to squeeze out of my face.

There was still something there, though. I could see it if I tilted my head just so, and looked really hard to the side.

So I bit the pain and squeezed as hard as I could.

I stopped when it began to bleed freely. That's a good sign; means everything is clear.

I inspected the pieces of the blackhead. I thought maybe it was some sort of burrowing bug I'd just evacuated from my face.

The damned thing crumbled between my fingers. It didn't even squish like any self-respecting blackhead would do.

It was the grossest thing to ever come out of my face.

Except perhaps that time that Ty swore I had a dirtier mouth than him. To make Ty say that, I must have said something incredibly gross.

I'm still worried, though, that there's still a piece of that...thing in my face.

If I don't come back in twenty minutes, fumigate my apartment, because the thing ate me from the inside.

Wish me luck.

.

Rosie.

Before&After