The Essay About Saliva.

After being on this earth for a rough 18 years, it’s safe to say I’ve learned a couple things: people will throw their cigarettes on the street but spit in the grass. Did you know saliva is 99% water? What’s the one percent? That’s a question I don’t have an answer to. But the skin absorbs 1% of the water it comes in contact with.

Their words echo and sink into your skin: “Why can’t you just kill yourself, Jahlani.” People will throw their cigarettes on the street but spit in the grass, and when you’re really lucky, they’ll spit in your face—moist, newly-wet—you feel it run down your cheek as they walk away.

What do you think that one percent comes from?

I think about that as the remnants of my past and the start of her present crawl down my face, leaving a thin, white trail. “Disgusting.” Did she say that, or was that just my own voice turning on me? Her footsteps faded long before I did.

Do I wipe it off?—the saliva, I mean. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it on my face. I wondered if she felt anything. Did she feel when I bought her flowers? When she cried in my arms? Of course she did… right? Of course she did. Our skin only absorbs 1% of the water it touches. That fact sat moisture-rich in my mind.

I stood there staring down at my red shoes. My mom bought me these just for this “special moment.” I wonder what she would say. “No te preocupes, mijo, okay?” Okay.

The only thing wet on my mind was: “¿Por qué me tratas así?”

I lost track of time as the saliva turned brittle, dry, then gone. Invisible—that I confirmed when I looked in the mirror after my shower. But I could still feel the adhesion, the stickiness of her words, her spit.

Our skin only absorbs one percent. But that’s all you need to suffocate, drown. Even if my skin only absorbs one percent, it’s enough to remind me I’m still here.