This mask is painted-
Lips and eyes, delicate but fractured
With little breaks and
spidery lines,
Like the fraying of my
dresses.

I can't remember what I
look like, anymore. The
roots showing beneath
this wig or the broken skin beneath this
porcelain

You say it's pretty. Say
I'm beautiful beneath
It's all an artifice,
Lying to save the truth I
cannot unleash

And your skin is
statuesque- perfect, and
your hinges don't creak
like mine,
And I wonder if they've
wired you up,
Finely tuned your
neurons, just like mine
So you can speak and
laugh without a mask
So you can act the part
of "fine"

So well, I find, I've fallen
in love,
Well so what, that
knowledge was just a
matter of finding
The right code to
program into.
A right set of Action and
Response

Can you even live with a
clockwork heart? With
tubes and chemicals as
veins.
Can you cry bitter,
Mercury tears?
Can your electrodes
spark, like mine?

I find this mask is so hard
to remove, and so easy
to wear,
That lately I've worn it to
sleep
I've begun to forget if I've
ever been without it,
before,
But it itches my skin raw,
and it chafes and sweats,
and I cry though
porcelain cannot weep.

This isn't the life you thought you'd live.
Everything's as dusty as the echoes in your head,
Your shadowy future is just as dark, as the monsters in the corner,
But they're warm, they make you believe that the world is colder.
So you take your lighter and let its flame fly, blowing against your finger,
Burning just the top layer of skin, and it's got to be okay,
You think if you could just shed it like a snake, everything could be new
Then you could step into the light, because as it is, that possibility
Is weighing you down
Your face is so familiar with the dirt, you brush your teeth with it,
Watch as potato bugs and worms crawl between your fingers,
And what must the world look like, to them? Down there?
To the creatures in the thick of it-
This isn't the life you thought you would live.
You feel alien, dejected and denied,
Painting your body with thin black ink, with phrases you adopted,
And pretty pastels, anything that will simply hide you away
Wear the mask you have to make yourself, so that,
Through the processes of painstakingly crafting it, you feel attached.
It doesn't occur to you that there's someone under all of it
Until you meet someone,
Whose curt words draw truths spluttering from your mouth,
Whose eyes render you naked,
Send you sprawling, back into the dirt.
And then they leave.
Leaving you wondering who you ever were.

I could spend my life,
Studying for a test I'll never take
I could spend my life,
Worrying about a failing grade or expulsion
But then I'd never live,
And I've given all I could give
Taken all I could take, and you crushed it in your hand
So I don't have an after-high school plan,
I've given adulthood all I can-
I could spend my life,
Wishing dreams would just come true
Or I could spend my life, just being me and doing what little I can do

"Your addiction and you are in love,
Not starcrossed"

And it's a tango I'm so familiar with,
Outside my mother's house, or my dorm room,
Or my apartments in Bellevue and Anaheim.
I know the steps, I know the rhythm,
That first drag of a cigarette,
That first sip of plum wine, or ***, or whisky, or beer,
That ancient gut-longing for someone who isn't here
I know the chords to the opening song,
Even to the older, pining songs which are long-gone
Now finely-tuned to my latest loss,
I give up, I give up, and I pay for it
No matter the cost

It could be a waltz, or a samba, but it's just deep-set lust
And though women usually come out on top in Tango,
I know I'll never win

So it's just a tango, that dance with death
Because I can't leave it be, at least *not yet

The stars have watched my descent
My water-color tattoo of disdain
Grass withers around my feet,
I'm a mar on this world, like a stain
I took a pill to stop my head from bleeding,
I let the ocean pull me down
Tried to lose myself in pleasure and pain,
And I see nothing but dust, in the night sky,
I see nothing worth suffering
Nothing