Fake plastic smiles
When I think about how you leave me hanging, it all really falls away until I'm left to lie about where it all went wrong. Just about ever right now you're my re-occurring daydream. On good days I bet against banks of morality where I have no account. I wager I'm soon to write all my sins away, a vice of a bid pitting all I may imagine against all the wicked things I've done. I'm certain I'll balance the books a second before I reach hell. Irony: burning eternally a moment after I cease to burn for you. And on bad days payments are called to interest, and I'm left with just my thoughts- for the devil takes his due in the things I might have said to make this all better- and they're all made of gasoline.
My brain becomes as much a funeral pyre as a drowning place for well intentioned thoughts. Laboriously, I stoke the embers of memory which smolder here. I wonder incessantly why your father ever bid you carry a flame for me. It is in that instant before it all goes up like the glint in your eye that I recall fire is his only friend. And still I want to feel your lips against mine, if only so I can kiss it all goodbye.
You know I was burned once before, truth be told she looked a lot like you. I half-imagine that was all just pretend, though. After all it can't be real if it's not something you believe in, I for one don't believe anything was ever real about you. No, I think she ran away, or at least that's what I imagined, maybe that was what I was told. Said she wanted to be a lawyer, or a doctor, when she grew up. At least be whatever the grown-ups played at who have all the shiny toys. Because those things are very real.
Maybe she just joined the circus, a life of illusion, freedom to travel from place to place, no complications, no worries, no attachments. Just a life of illusion. And buried memories in towns long forgotten. Open windows on the east-side are no place for an angel to lose her wings, after all. Just like New Year's eve back home was never the right time. I imagine that's just life in the circus though, days and nights playing pretend, stretching from one illusion to another.
I imagine there's lucky kids somewhere that can make make-believe last forever, if they just pretend hard enough. Must be where my imaginary friend is now, perfecting the next illusion.
But I can take it, burns and all. Truth be told it only hurts when you smile, perhaps only because that's the biggest lie of all. I imagine almost nearly as distasteful for me as the as the complications approaching feelings are for you. But those are just pretend anyway, thoughts put off for grown-up times, there are illusions yet to reveal. I'll take mine though, scars will be the souvenirs from my trips to the circus. Worth the price of admission every time too. Though I must admit even the best of liars can be bad actors. Granted, you can run with the best of them (bad knee and all), and you can go to the greatest of lengths to find things to hide behind, still, the truth is as tenacious as it is inevitable: always but a mirror's glance away. And that's something you cannot look past when you're doing your makeup, the truth is a hard pill, and cannot be taken in sideways, no matter what color your eyes feign to be.
Isn't it a pity you still haven't managed to fool yourself? There's time yet, though, if you pretend hard enough. And perhaps when you grow up you can learn magic, maybe make all your promises disappear? Though if all else fails you can always change your number, maybe pick a new face to go along with that newest place, grown-ups do that you know. Yes, pick another town, start a new circus, trendier and grander than the last, grown-ups do that too. An ever-revolving cavalcade of admirers and companions to match the ever diminishing shelf-life of life-long friends. Yes, I hear London will be lovely next Spring, a tonic for the ails of those old townes you knew before. Or maybe someplace warm? Perhaps the Caribbean?
Me, I'm not much for make-believe. Born too high-strung for even the high wire act, I guess. Afraid of heights too, isn't that a catch? In any case I've been too busy mired amongst the woes of worry to keep up the act. My sins of course being the easiest to point out because I own them, like a man amongst stray dogs, they've become my familiars.
Though it's not all skulls and bones, it's just a part of being a grown up, all a part of the great miracle that is giving a damn. A heart for every fate they say, and at that, one even for the heartless. I imagine. You'll come to understand this some day when you're an adult.
But remember: just because you're the first to leave the scene of the crime, does not mean you were innocent, just like being the last to go means I never get to forget.
Decency, dear girl, is holding on to the rope you hang someone with.
Dignity, I have found, is hanging silently.
My brain becomes as much a funeral pyre as a drowning place for well intentioned thoughts. Laboriously, I stoke the embers of memory which smolder here. I wonder incessantly why your father ever bid you carry a flame for me. It is in that instant before it all goes up like the glint in your eye that I recall fire is his only friend. And still I want to feel your lips against mine, if only so I can kiss it all goodbye.
You know I was burned once before, truth be told she looked a lot like you. I half-imagine that was all just pretend, though. After all it can't be real if it's not something you believe in, I for one don't believe anything was ever real about you. No, I think she ran away, or at least that's what I imagined, maybe that was what I was told. Said she wanted to be a lawyer, or a doctor, when she grew up. At least be whatever the grown-ups played at who have all the shiny toys. Because those things are very real.
Maybe she just joined the circus, a life of illusion, freedom to travel from place to place, no complications, no worries, no attachments. Just a life of illusion. And buried memories in towns long forgotten. Open windows on the east-side are no place for an angel to lose her wings, after all. Just like New Year's eve back home was never the right time. I imagine that's just life in the circus though, days and nights playing pretend, stretching from one illusion to another.
I imagine there's lucky kids somewhere that can make make-believe last forever, if they just pretend hard enough. Must be where my imaginary friend is now, perfecting the next illusion.
But I can take it, burns and all. Truth be told it only hurts when you smile, perhaps only because that's the biggest lie of all. I imagine almost nearly as distasteful for me as the as the complications approaching feelings are for you. But those are just pretend anyway, thoughts put off for grown-up times, there are illusions yet to reveal. I'll take mine though, scars will be the souvenirs from my trips to the circus. Worth the price of admission every time too. Though I must admit even the best of liars can be bad actors. Granted, you can run with the best of them (bad knee and all), and you can go to the greatest of lengths to find things to hide behind, still, the truth is as tenacious as it is inevitable: always but a mirror's glance away. And that's something you cannot look past when you're doing your makeup, the truth is a hard pill, and cannot be taken in sideways, no matter what color your eyes feign to be.
Isn't it a pity you still haven't managed to fool yourself? There's time yet, though, if you pretend hard enough. And perhaps when you grow up you can learn magic, maybe make all your promises disappear? Though if all else fails you can always change your number, maybe pick a new face to go along with that newest place, grown-ups do that you know. Yes, pick another town, start a new circus, trendier and grander than the last, grown-ups do that too. An ever-revolving cavalcade of admirers and companions to match the ever diminishing shelf-life of life-long friends. Yes, I hear London will be lovely next Spring, a tonic for the ails of those old townes you knew before. Or maybe someplace warm? Perhaps the Caribbean?
Me, I'm not much for make-believe. Born too high-strung for even the high wire act, I guess. Afraid of heights too, isn't that a catch? In any case I've been too busy mired amongst the woes of worry to keep up the act. My sins of course being the easiest to point out because I own them, like a man amongst stray dogs, they've become my familiars.
Though it's not all skulls and bones, it's just a part of being a grown up, all a part of the great miracle that is giving a damn. A heart for every fate they say, and at that, one even for the heartless. I imagine. You'll come to understand this some day when you're an adult.
But remember: just because you're the first to leave the scene of the crime, does not mean you were innocent, just like being the last to go means I never get to forget.
Decency, dear girl, is holding on to the rope you hang someone with.
Dignity, I have found, is hanging silently.
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