Bubblegum lip gloss

The new day calls for

the admiration

and adoration

of the gorgeous,

beautiful,

lovely things

that uphold

the stems of the flowers of

trauma that still remains.

I can still smell the scarlet smoke.

A young girl looks to the closet

with

fantastic adoration of what’s to come.

Her eyes as green as the sea

can’t help but drown in love

as she thinks about how much she adores

the face behind the screen.

Fishnet stockings, checkering the knee,

a spiked choker,

black tee with white sleeves covering her arms,

a gorgeous poofy skirt that swayed with each step,

eyeshadow green like the sea

and blue like the sky,

eyeliner as pitch black as

the blood that drenched my face

and stained my eyes,

and bubblegum lip gloss.

As she flutters her eyelashes in the mirror,

she accidentally looks herself right in her eyes

and sees herself for who she truly is

for the very last time.

An unwarped image of who she is.

Images of falling through slides

and picnics with family

and hugs after each achievement,

swimming through each memory of gratitude, praise, and joy

that came with once being a child,

she sees clearly,

no filter.

She turns back to her lashes.

Those eyes have never changed

in the million times she’s looked upon them.

It’s no different this time.

Her hair drowns itself in its casual black and green dye,

the eyeliner leaves its marks around her eyes

like a knife with a blood-stained tip

ready to gouge its victim’s eyes out,

and she reapplies her bubblegum lip gloss.

The sun sets,

the sea is calm,

the sky is clear,

and life for every other person

goes on.

With one star’s death,

comes a million to the sky.

The moon soon comes,

but she does not.

Her body stands in one piece,

but her mind will never be the same.

Her eyes will never be the same again.

Her tears bleed as pitch black

as the eyeliner that fueled it.

Her room is ravaged, so that maybe, just maybe,

something can feel the pain

she did.

She burns her eyeliner in a fire,

cuts her hair so that the eyeliner will not die alone,

and uses the clothes she wore that day as fuel.

Black tears still swim down her face,

as her past burns

along with the things

she once loved.

The black blood following betrayal

drenches both our faces

in the same painful way.

And to keep a memento,

so she never forgets the last time

she could remember being herself,

she hides in her drawer

a pen of bubblegum lip gloss.