"What happened to her?"
It's better if you Don't. Ask.
See she wears Depression on her face,
In bloodshot eyes and dark circles,
In early age lines and pale cheeks,
In bitten, chapped lips.
You want to ask, "what happened to her?"
But it's better if you don't look too closely,
Or the spider-web cracks across her porcelain mask
Will break
You can already see the black smoke eking through
Joined to the shadowy frame of the one who walks beside her
Caressing her filigree skin and flicking a lighter.
She says, "I want someone to take the pain,
**** it, smoke it, love it, beat it, praise it, blaze it, lemon-glaze it,
Kiss it, kick it, shoot it, carve it, wear it, taste it, light it on fire."
But all we ever say is "you're looking so much better now"
So much better now.
Like a marionette in a little side show, colorful, with ribbons.
A broken smile, and sad, sad eyes.
So beautifully tragic, it must all be for show.
Though the silver she draws with, its ink a bright red,
Is more telling than any lie she has fed
Fed on, cried on, choked on, drowned with, like a gluttonous pig.
So what happened to her? And the life she once led?
Those honeyed dreams turned to mutinous greys in her head?
It's better if you turn away and smile,
And pretend your heart inside isn't as dead,
She only wears the pain most hold inside, swallowing a painful life from a flask sewn into the flesh of her hip,
It's better if you didn't ask.