Beauty Aides

touch the altruistic lies without even
the smallest hint of second guessing.
burn like california in the summer, so
vast and idealistic, so brown from past
blunders of fire and water and ice and
foam. and beautiful, shining liberty
boundless and baseless and barred

from need or snacking or revelation
of the prophecies. it's been thirty
minutes since the bombing, i wonder
if anyone is alive, because they are
certainly pumping in rivers of sludge,
called "aidddd." but we all know the
truth, somewhere deep inside our

psyche. cooperation, as a lifestyle is
harder than iron, bagging game and
searching to exploit the "because." I am
wearing nail polish, though my hands
stay in pockets full of lent and dollars
and the occasional wandering finger
to an itch I cannot discus here. it's not safe

it's not safe to be found wanting, to be a
living being with all of those inconsistencies
that don't line up with those images that
shine silver on screens that I can touch.
human isn't good enough anymore. it
needs to be enhanced. it needs to be
forgiven. as the loveliest of ladies, so

constrained by their own magazines, sit
locked inside prisons of pigments and
preservatives, of oils and waxes, among
ultra-violet rays with a space to lie down
and unflattering covers for their eyes, in
case they might catch a glimpse of themselves

but the tragedy of tragedies, be not the
fear from which they hide, nor the dirty
conclusions drawn from compliance.
no, the greatest of tragedies is the culprit.
for while murder breeds murderers, while
theft breeds thieves, all distantly identifiable
these prisons, mere result from me.