Ways people have described the moles on my face when i never asked

“moley! moley! moley!” yelled derek, my crush, in front of our 4th-grade class as we walked to the busses. luke whispered to me, “they look like chocolate chips & i want to lick them off your face,” during 7th grade passing period next to the blue lockers.

as the dermatologist inspected all 16 with his cold, wrinkled fingers, under the glaring lights & magnifying glass, “your moles look normal. this would be plastic surgery to remove them — and there would be scars.”

“they look cute,” my mom would reassure me. my husband once told me, “they make you unique.”

it’s a face people remember with toasted dots fixed alongside both cheeks, orion’s belt running down the left side & a couple of stranded burnt stars on the right, only disappearing with a smile.