She's the girl with the matte lipstick,
Deep, bold red that flows in her veins
She throws them fierce on her fragile lips
Warning every man she's more than a kiss.

She's the girl with the matte lipstick
A deeper red than the roses she was given,
One look at the mirror and she's all set
To rule out the world with her head set high.

And she will be stronger than you and I,
For her soul is clinquant with
glittery gold
Of fading scars and past mistakes
That she will one day conquer all on her own.

The girls wear lipstick - red or black. They wear it for themselves or at times so like dogs or war criminals they can mark their territory.

thank you for showing me
that high heels are useless
unless you strut -
so ill reapply my lipstick,
kiss the mirror instead of you,
and move on.

War paint I always found unnecessary:
Gloss for manicured lipstick commercial princesses
Not of my kind.

And though I walk with shield, I am without armour:
Ramparts mere cheekbones,
Bare skin impressionable as snow.

Boot-print,
The mark I hated. My characters:
Frail tree rings, exposed to the chill night air.

Gold inlay frozen solid.
The fairly bound dream factory
Lies purple with melancholy.



It’s the world’s bruise. It colours sudden,
Shadowing the other side of the room
Where it paused, rare moth

Lighted upon my dark reflection,
A Mona Lisa dressed in black
And reminiscent of bobby sox.

Beauty without fanfare.
Stuff of woods: we do not glitter.
We don’t call out.

Our tongues are both dumbstruck bells.
Shy rabbits, we fold within ourselves
And sequester our secret pulp.

My lips are thin
like the cheap sheets
we slept under last night.
Noses cold and pressed together,
transforming the AC into waves
and ourselves into nobodies.

Nobody sees me punish my lips
for being so small and disappointing .
Tiny pale flakes lie lifeless
on the barely pink slits;
a testimony of my brutality
and the precision of my teeth.
..........................................................­..

Teeth clenched and eyes wide,
I hold the goods in my palm.
Firecracker, Ravish Me Red, Red Door Red.
Ravish Me Red sounds like a good time,
so Ravish Me Red it is.
but I wish I had a fourth.

Four minutes until I see you.
You're always exact.
The clock pleads for me,
but I'm busy glaring at
the familiar rouge strangers on my face
that I can't deny are mine.

My teeth try and fail to resist
The taste of my scarlet-smeared skin
they gnaw and gnaw at their treat,
dressing themselves in Ravish Me Red.
They refuse to be satisfied
until they taste blood.

Blood doesn't match my ruby lipstick
It's smudgy and ugly and I am ashamed.
My face is wet when I open the door.
You ask what's wrong, but you already know.
Through your smile I hear,
"Red isn't really your color."

Color now on your wrists and nose and knees
The red marks you as mine.
It fades from me to you
and leaves my lips naked
but you kiss the tiny pale flakes
that I used to hate.

My insides are made
Of shattered glass
Held together by pink bubble gum
An irreparable scene
Masked by leather jackets, red lips,
And pastel hair dye.
I wear fake battle scars on the outside
So people don't dare look in.

it smelled like love and a dive bar.
polishing liquid, flowers, stale smoke, patchouli oil.
the floor was covered in a blanket of antique carpets that
were the color of levi’s after being
mixed with bleach
and red lipstick that hadn't been removed
after 2 days that needed to be touched up.
that character practically lived
in the silver giant
and he decided that tapestries with the edges duct taped to the windowsills with designs
that were so deeply eloquent to the point
where the human brain could effortlessly get lost in them
were 300 times better than curtains.
there was a transistor radio in there,
oh, the good ol’ transistor that
was adored despite the raging amounts of
static that would pour out of
the speakers...
whenever the dead or zeppelin came
on the volume switch would turn as far
to the right as it would go.
he would smile
and within an hour
his fingers, bound in
layers of opal and turquoise rings would turn an ordinary
sheet of silver into
a glistening piece of magic.
every second spent in the airstream
was an abstract painting as tangled and mystifying
as those tapestries on the cracked
fingerprint stained windows,
where life took place in the subterranean depths
of the paper grains that no one
had dared to venture to.

-*z. vega

Peachy ****,
lipstick prints on necks
of boys.
No,
of bottles.

Alcohol leaves me puffy-eyed,
& so do the boys,
& if both are the same
I choose bottles, readily
available for only me.

A blank canvas
Ready for color
With some paint
and a brush
After hours and hours
She transformed it
to art

A clean face
Ready for make-up
With some mascara
and a lipstick
After hours and hours
She made herself
pretty

With her make-up on
she said to the artist
"You're wasting your time
with all of your paintings"
Then the artist said
to her pretty, little friend
"Tell me darling,
what is really the
difference between
you and me?"

Those red lips,
forged by MAC
are but only one color
in the endless stream of
existing shades.