Your lips are painted red like the roses they make rosaries from. Melting the petals down to
clay and shaping something new,
the way God shaped man from earth,
a modicum of faith is crafted.
They drop a subtle shade of red, like plum wine mixed with vodka at a party where drinks
are mixed faster than hearts are broken.
But the hearts are broken just the same.
Your heart is the same color as your lips, but instead of filled with life, it sports a frosted
sheen: an icy protection against swords in the hands of lovers and daggers in the hands of
friends.
Betrayed once, but never again.
Rouge paints your face: the space around your eyes, your cheeks,
as you walk among all the other guests,
your mask is still a mask,
but more of who you are shines
through in your eyes than
anyone else’s.
Shimmer on your shoulders like stardust from the heavens;
the perfect stargirl to light the way for egotistical men who think you owe them something.
The living room is more packed than the tomb they once adorned for you.
Girls in glitter and boys who think they will one day be men,
slipping multicolored haze into things that aren’t theirs.
Staring down the front of your shirt because
of course you are both too drunk to remember it later.
The makeup is your face: the face you wear for other people.
No one has to know, do they?
That you’re real?
That there is no separation between this world and the next?