Twitch

Twitch

By Quinn Delaney

I have a twitch in the corner of my mouth. 

I don't like how it feels, and I hate how it looks. 

There's no warning when it happens, and seemingly no rhyme or reason.  

It seems to only happen when I smile naturally. 

When I was younger, I used to smile and feel it twitch, and then I'd get embarrassed and stop smiling. Then I learned that if I focused on how I smiled, only smiled on one side, it wouldn't twitch. 

So I started smiling on one side of my mouth, so I wouldn't be embarrassed. 

Some people made fun of me for smiling on one side, but somehow it was less embarrassing than being made fun of for the twitch. 

I think it's because I can't even make it twitch if I try, even looking in the mirror makes all kinds of faces.  It just happens when it wants to. So I keep smiling on one side. 

And now there's someone I know, and they make me laugh a lot. 

And one day we were talking about twitches and I told them I used to have a twitch in the corner of my mouth when I smiled, but only when I smiled naturally. 

And they said they knew, they'd seen it when I smiled. 

I was horrified, they'd seen it. I'd always tried so hard to make sure it didn't happen. 

And I realized they'd seen it because I'd been so focused on them when they made me laugh, that I'd forgotten about the twitch. 

We talked, and they made me feel better about it. 

And now I still try to hide the twitch, still smile on one side. But sometimes when they make me laugh, I feel the twitch, but I don't mind. 

Now I'm starting to realize I have a twitch in my eyebrow, I didn't even know I had it till I met them. 

We joke that it's because of a new facial expression because they make me feel a new emotion that no one else has before. 

But it's just a joke,

I think.