I think you've covered up your sadness with
fancy perfume and that red lipstick you bought
in the 7th grade.

I think you erase each aspect of your personality
with cover-up and golden bangles,
and something else you read on the cover of
Cosmopolitan while you were waiting in line
at the grocery store.

I know you exiled every person who meant the
world to you because they began to know too much,
like how many times you brush your teeth a day
and what you pray for before you go to sleep.

You think I don't notice the way you look away
when you're surrounded by all your friends
and they're talking and laughing,
and you're "happy."

I think you smeared your red lipstick on
purpose because you knew I'd feel
too bad to leave you on your own
and I'd try to save you again.

Instead I wrote you a letter,
about why I think you're different,
and I taped it to your front door
and wrote your name on the front so only you would read.

So put on your red lipstick,
and gloss up your eyes again
because I am afraid you might be breaking,
and at least at one time those
very things held you
together.

Reflected in the silver
is my ghost of madness.
Lost in the etchings in copper
is the memories I have repressed.

I scratched the words in metal,
but it didn't change a thing.
Something made so permanent,
cannot be changed,
even with a cover or facade.

I threw the coins in the fountain,
but,
they were in my pocket the very next day.

It was change,
that I couldn't get rid of.

I made wishes on silver, and copper,
and even on the metal in my pockets,
and the gold in my earrings,
but they never came true.

Reflected in the silver,
is my madness that I suppress.
Painted dark in copper
are the faults I'd like to hide,
but I can't get rid of them,
and they're too much to carry.

Kiss her with those poisoned lips.
I haven't touched them lately but
the taste still burns the back of my throat.

Kiss her with that poison;
with the venom that spoiled me.
It doesn't bother me anymore
because that poison isn't mine.

Sting her with your fingertips;
at first it'll be so gentle she wont notice
but in the end she'll be plastered
like the inside of a breaking house.

Kiss her with those poisoned lips;
I hope she has the antidote.
The prey is always enticed by the show,
she won't realize, but I'll know.

Tap, tap, tap.
These repetitive little things
repeatedly annoy me.
They tap and tap and tap,
and my blood begins to boil.

Tap, tap, tap.
It's like it echos in my head,
like whispers that emit
in a room that makes no noise.
And I am tired of the-
tap, tap, tap.
It drives me crazy, and,
i cannot control it.
I have a problem,
with authority.
I don't like to be controlled.
And when the tap comes tapping back,
I cannot sit at all.
It stirs me like a coffee cup and
throws me like a switch.
It's like a faulty bungee jump
or a clock that only ticks.
TAP TAP TAP.
It's only getting worse.
I contract, with the-
tap tap tap*-
and I can't control myself.
So stop the tap, tap, tap,
or maybe I'll stop it for you.
Because once the demons rise in me,
the anxiety builds a wall,
and it won't control the things I'd wish to do at all.

Her fingertips were bruised,
and her ribs were lined with dust.
Beneath the bones, all but crushed,
lays a heart, broken but blushed.

Her eyes were left with tears,
that not all happiness was real.
She would bend and snap,
if, it was all still black.

Her lips were laced with blood,
and her teeth were spilling lies.
He didn't care for how she was,
he left her own her own.

"It can be my fault."
was her favorite lie.
It was down on her hand,
it was under her eye.

It was like a hurricane,
steadily growing worse.
How could such a good girl
be burdened with a curse?

She's waiting for a statue.
That is not the way.
She's crying on the staircase.
That is not the way.

Her collar is warn and breaking,
her elbow holds a crack.
She pretends not to notice,
that she's drowned in blue
and black.

She pretends she isn't falling.
That is not the way.
She's telling her friends she's okay.
That is not the way.

She wipes off her mascara
and the lines all down her cheeks.
This is not the way.

II.

She cleaned up the coffee table
and the rips in the brand new couch.
She watered the flowers he bought her,
but made sure nobody knew.

"That is not the way."
he said,
but she only shook her head.

She always said she didn't notice,
the darkness on her back.
She was sick of hearing,
what might be the way.

Her friends said she seemed
different,
because she didn't call them
on Saturday night anymore.
Why?

"Listen, this isn't the way."
he said it again like
suddenly she might hear him.

"It's all okay."
"You don't understand."
"This is the way."

He didn't take it and
instead he packed her bags.
He said he couldn't take it,
he wouldn't let her sink.

He stole her like a story,
and told her someplace else.
He didn't let any darkness,
capture her with madness.

He swore that she was fragile;
she said that she was strong.
Never for once in her life,
did she ever might think she was
wrong.

III.

Somewhere in the papers,
was a name with a dark face.
When she saw the headline,
she tossed it off the stairs.

Her friends has lost their contact,
and her mother had worried her head.
She ignored all of the letters,
and bathed in the light instead.

She looked at him like dreaming,
and saw the light again.
She always overlooked it,
but it was always him.

He served her with a smile,
and held her pink finger tips.
She told  him she was sorry,
and that she should have trusted him.
But he told her to never
say that again.

I specialize in lies;
I have special lies.
I am an expert in falsities,
oh, isn't that the most lovely?

I can easily take words from
very empty minds,
but cannot put a word into
a mind as active as mine.

Stealing lines from empty air
is my favorite little talent.
I can form a pretty song,
when there's seemingly nothing there.

I can sew cloth on cloth to
create a bed of thoughts.
And petals on each flower
represents the colors in your eyes.

Yes, I am a professional liar,
but I supposed that I was a writer.

It might seem outlandish,
or perhaps, kinda sad-ish,
but I can lie with words
and make you feel the feelings,
of whatever I may create.