Self-destructive broken infatuation.
Seeking redemption in every reflection,
Something worth clutching
interior quality worth keeping.
She sheds her skin
of lipstick, purple and frills
long hair and heels.
Applies an eyeliner mask,
Expanding the void in her ears,
and screams fervent spasticity
in an '88 Beamer after dark.
Sewing on a smile
As she submerges into her skinny jean costume,
Overtaking her uncertainty with spectacle.

In the Forest of seniors,
she thought she saw authentic attraction
in a kiss with less lips and more teeth.
A drummer with a conscience tells her,
the power out and rain pouring down,
he's looking for an easy target.
A year goes by, maybe she forgets.
She tries it again, the kiss just the same.
He says he's got another girl,
but it doesn't work out, and if she's available,
He'd love to hang out some time.
She never replies, forgets about him.
She walks into Costco, a smile on her face,
feels it fall like water nailed to a wall.

Cheap Canadian whiskey, no ice, no chase
in a Sierra Nevada tumbler
in a stale stranger's house.
**** past midnight,
falling into the walls,
narrating the motions.
Where's the ******* door?
A bombshell in department store lingerie.
Glass to lips, just to fill the silence.
He grabs her *** going upstairs.
Heat clings to the sheets,
Can't afford A/C,
Factory linoleum is heaven.
Half-uttered excuses go unnoticed.

She shivers on a bench beside
a black-dyed blond guitar player,
black nails and eyeliner,
husky tee shirt, sleeves cut off.
She's feeling a little gross,
cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes,
the taste of his mouth is sickening,
so she turns her face away.
Hides behind her pride,
As her clothes fall aside.
Tryst with a trailer park,
shallow musings lacking words,
bite marks on her neck.

She ships him off to San Francisco,
clings to an ex-addict,
pretty face, hair longer than hers,
with Hope for a name.
Shatters on a mattress on the floor,
and a fifteen minute break.
Fate rides Greyhound,
Falls in love with long distance.
A boy with Liberty spikes, skinny jeans
and naked with a red guitar.
Her best friend weaves words
better than she can, she feels worthless.
Shatters the morning after her birthday,
in the arms of a man like a brother.

Two years gone by,
She's tired of the mask,
sick of countless endings,
and not enough beginnings.
Two years of idiocy,
of love and love lost,
and in two weeks,
she's back where she started from.
But this time, she's pushing back,
standing tall, and another mask
is in the trash.
Two more years,
and her feet hit the pavement.
She's not sixteen anymore.