Today I wore pink
And all through the hours
I felt wide - expansive,
Like a Sahara of embarassment,
The blush of recycled shame.

The color made me think of you,
And how you purred over the shade
When she inked it into her hair,
A blonde head turned to bubblegum filth;
How you smiled and fell in love
With everything but me.
You used to carry sweet words
In the pocket of your cheeks,
******* them like peppermints,
Tumbling them like a dryer
Until your teeth turned red
And then your tongue went sour
And your mouth grew mad,
Spitting sparks and catching my skin on fire.
She wasted you, with her cotton candy highlights
And that incessant, stupid need to be free.
She wasted you, and made you new
For everyone but me.

My mind is a carousel, and my thoughts are
Bumbling to catch one another,
Waltzing and reeling in spirals,
And dizzying the dance with canned lullabyes.
The girl at the bookstore has a smile
That's all teeth and pink gums.
She's pink, if pink were living,
And she's following me like a lost silhouette.
He asks me if I'm okay and I
Nod my head and feed him excuses.
He doesn't spit them up; its easy.
Truth is, I'm a whirlwind,
A pink whirlwind, and the color makes my stomach knot.
The muscles in my chest are whining,
And going stiff with self-disgust.
I'm starting to think I'm only happy
When I'm torturing myself with you.