RED
︎︎︎ Nicola Maye Goldberg
︎ APR 7, 2022
When Anna Kavan died in 1968, the police found in her apartment fifty tubes of
red lipstick and “enough heroin to kill the whole street.” To the police, the
lipsticks might have looked the same, and Kavan’s collection might have seemed
like another pathology, a particularly and pathetically feminine one. I doubt,
though, that they were identical. I’m sure some shimmered and others glowed,
that some were slightly pink and others vaguely blue. I suspect that she
purchased, or perhaps stole them, with some deliberation, and that she wore
them even on days she knew she would not leave her flat. It’s hard to put on
lipstick when your hands shake, but it’s not impossible. You can dab at your
mouth with a tissue. It’s like tending a little wound.
Nicola Maye Goldberg is the author of the novel NOTHING CAN HURT YOU (Bloomsbury, 2020). Her work has appeared in Vogue, New York Tyrant, The Drunken Canal, Forever Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City. @nicolamayeg