Photo Courtesy of Edward Salas – Deviant Art
I.
Come one. Come all!
Step right up
to the greatest show on earth.
Stare into the eyes
of our Emotionally Inept Girl!
But don’t let this Medusa
turn you to stone.
We found her back in ’85,
after white coat men
whitewashed dirty deeds.
Her prescription hooked
comatose mind,
running endless
rat race maze.
Yes, this pickled punk
is dead inside!
A true wonder of creation!
Oh, but she was alive once.
Before trepidation,
familiar and cold,
nightly fed
on callow innocence,
pure as snow.
II.
Judgement casting
jumbotron spotlight
searching every corner
for a piece of the
emotionally inept girl.
You won’t find me.
I’m nowhere thin air
four star boxcar.
I’m everywhere
here nor there.
Hidden in plain sight
paint by number
Starry Night.
Arbitrary mimicry
finicky facsimile
of love/hate
happy/sad
right/wrong.
Tip toe running
through your
deep, dark well.
Tickling doubt
beneath resolve.
III.
From a road show, fear came crawling,
with her clenched-fist apocalypse
and pocket full of temptation.
I watched,
paralytic and feeble,
as my shoe box heart
was dissected.
With steely eyed surgeon precision
she extracted all of my well wishes.
Sold them like a 2am junkie
looking for her midnight fix.
Being but only nickels and dimes,
she went to market with my
freshly harvested humility.
Now my two tone personality
only has a sharpened greed
and ever aching envy.
I stand here
a coward and a thief.
I’m a liar and a cheat.
A better faker,
you’re likely to never meet.
But I was alive once,
before frailty,
familiar and cold,
nightly fed
on fleeting beauty,
lily-white and bold.
Fortune's Expensive Smile 