The obelisk is.
It always was.
Even in my mother’s womb, I felt its presence. 
How she walked to it every day at dawn and again at dusk.
I felt every shaky step towards the foot of the idol,
how she prostrated beneath it,
put her hands on her knees to rise when she was done,
and walked back home.
As soon as I could walk, 
I would take the same graveled path with her every dawn and dusk.
We 
laid ourselves on the hard, uneven ground,
knees tucked into our chests, 
heads to the earth, 
hands splayed in front,
and remained beneath the obelisk for,
as a young child,
what seemed like forever.
As I grew, so did my time with the obelisk.

Every morning, an hour before sunrise,
my mother woke me up.
Together, we opened the chipped wooden chest at the foot of her bed 
and procured the powders and blends necessary for the day’s trek.
Dipping my finger in a red powder,
I smeared it across my mother’s cheeks 
while she took a beige liquid to the space beneath my eyes.
Maroon jellies and shimmering potions and black horsehair sticks and sticky sprays 
were pulled from the chest,
and when we finished, 
the floor was covered in ceremonial product, 
the marble beneath barely visible. 
We placed the products one at a time back into the chest. 
We were ready.
My mother and I took fabric and plastic from the caddy by the door, 
and bound our feet in the materials with ribbons and string, 
until blood cells stopped at the top of our ankles, 
took one look at the pathways we tightened into oblivion
and promptly turned around.
Our hike took fourteen minutes.
Upon reaching the obelisk, 
we
laid ourselves on the uneven ground,
knees tucked into our chests, 
heads to the earth, 
hands splayed in front,
and remained beneath the obelisk for ten minutes.
We never spoke to the mothers and daughters beside us.
We all understood our duty.
We returned to the obelisk every dusk,
bowed upon the rough dirt for ten minutes more,
and returned home again.

As I grew, I began to hate our ritual, 
our powders and sprays stained across our faces like splatterings of Dalmatian fur,
our feet losing sensation,
the bees buzzing around our toes,
our day-in and day-out walk,
our day-in and day-out tread,
our day-in and day-out hike,
the obelisk.
For all of the time I had given it, 
what had it given me?
When my mother opened my bedroom door every morning, 
an hour before sunrise,
she found me on my deep-sea-blue rug, 
rubbing pastes and creams across my face in haphazard motions,
then looking up at her, begging for release.
I couldn’t present myself to the obelisk if I looked like a painter’s last hurricane. 
Nevertheless, every morning,
my mother took me to the wooden chest at the foot of her bed, 
poured cleaning liquid into a plastic cup, dipped a rag into the solution, 
and wiped my mess off my face.
She reapplied my face, then made up her own.
While I kicked and screamed,
it was she who took fabric and plastic from the caddy by the door, 
and bound my feet in the materials with ribbons and string 
until my blood cells couldn’t swim below my calves.
She tied the last knot on my feet, then cinched her own.
When we reached the obelisk, 
we
laid ourselves on the hard, uneven ground,
knees tucked into our chests, 
heads to the earth, 
hands splayed in front,
and remained beneath the obelisk for an eternity.
I hated her.

One morning, I maliciously complied. 
I woke myself up and made up my mother’s face before my own and applied the potions and creams flawlessly and wrapped my feet in fabric and plastic and offered to do the same for my mother and she looked at me with great trepidation as I laced up her feet and we set off and when we arrived
we
laid ourselves on the hard, uneven ground,
knees tucked into our chests, 
heads to the earth, 
hands splayed in front,
and remained beneath the obelisk for five seconds,
when I jumped up and ran into the woods.
I sprinted with such strength that the knots of my foot bindings came apart, 
the material falling back into the trees.
I could hear my mother yelling,
but her screams quickly faded with the distance. 

I ran for hours.
Branches scratched at my face,
leaving marks on the bridge of my nose.
I swam across rivers, 
the water washing away the paint from my mother’s wooden chest.
I climbed mountains and watched as everything fell away until I was nothing but flesh.
After days, at the shore of a river, 
I began to examine my body, looking at myself in an entirely new light. 
I found a line on my calves where the binding started. 
The muscle beneath felt weak, and when I touched it,
it gave in like jell-o.
I reached up to my face, feeling its new texture.
For so long, 
the creams and the gels and the sprays molded my skin into a faux perfection,
but this new face felt real. 
I am real.
I always was.