We all start with blank faces.
Ebony or
Ivory or
Olive or
Anything in between.
Skin so dark they don't sell the shade at Sephora.
Skin so light you've got to mix the color with white to make it match.
Whatever the color, it's all the same skin.

We all start with blank faces
Made of cells and covered in blemishes
Stretched thin across our cheekbones
Or hanging loose and wrinkled with age,
With lines on our foreheads like
Punishment
for laughing too much.
When did laughter become such a grievous crime?

We all start with blank faces.
… and then we become Van Gogh.
With expert brush strokes, we paint.
We coat ourselves with thick layers of pastey goop like Elmer's glue
Paint it on thick to cover our blemishes and red spots
We top it off with pigment like powdered sugar on sweets
Not knowing that the more opaque our makeup is, the more transparent.

We all start with blank faces.
… and then we become sculptors
Contouring and contorting to conform to unrealistic standards.
We highlight our best features and conceal the rest.
We conceal the redness of our cheeks just to paint it on again with blush.
We paint wings on our eyes although we'll never fly.

We all start with blank faces.
… and then we become victims of consumerism
Spending our money on different shades of the same **** thing
They raise the prices because they know they'll sell it to us anyway
They force it upon us, then shame us for becoming slaves to it
We are the victims and the perpetrators.

We all start with blank faces
… and then we become artists
… and then we become victims
… and then we become warriors

**This is our war paint.