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She clings to the walls
Like the paint peeling from the rampart.
Someone must have forgotten to mention
That you should never
Paint your roses black
When wearing an evening gown
Torn from magazines and sewed together
With saccharine lies.
It isn’t the most flattering thing to don.
Actually, she could completely understand
Why he gave her nothing more then
A disgusted,
Almost non-existence
Side-ways glance

Every possible love vein had long been
Severed and snapped with a rusty
Odium knife clenched by both of them
But she can’t help noticing
That way he turns his head just
So that everything clicks into place
His hair sheens to ragged snow
Momentarily calming his harsh face.

Once upon a time, that look was hers
His face wrapped in aura with foil and glittering
But its occurrence was frayed,
Pulled and stretched with habitual remembering.
Now it was only a nostalgia she’s
Pretty sure she had just invented herself
Lying awake in her cradle one night.
The only differences now between the
Memory rotting in her head
And the way he is staring now is that the
Hinges on his mouth swing open a little more,
His eyes erotically wandering over his
Someone old,
Someone new,
His someone different
Has made her blue.

Yet, it’s a little hard to have
A prominent nose turned up at you,
To be constantly wearing a
Melting neon sign inscribed with
Warning: Eye contact with Miss Monster
Could send you shooting through Your
Mind for an Unpleasantly Painful and/or
Embarrassing Flashback.

Someone serves him sugar and ice,
But he chews on lipstick instead.
She sighs with the sad, sad
Realization that he’s
Just a tacky plastic knight whose
Chivalry has a motive that’s slightly less
Then completely honorable.
But, euthanasia has always needed a reason.

His grimy caramel voice
Ricochets off the walls and
Twists in her ears like a razor windmill.
So she turns away to the hammering of the
Three radios playing at once
The sacrifices being compared,
“Well I have my vendettas,
Just look at my wrists.
Oh hell hath no scorn,
Then one who’s been kissed.

By Joanna Tenney