Beauty Like Broken Crutches

Guilty with the dead spider on the bottom of her shoe. A run in her mood unstoppable. Where's the giant hand to flatten her she asked to the song she wasn't listening to anymore. Same ugly music she always assumes belongs to her. Like pleasure belongs to rich, dirty old men. And hopelessness only to the desperately young.

Where's the exit to the maze the walls asked in a snit of left over woman syrup. Changing herself she thought of babies and geriatrics. How prevalent the diaper is in all stages of a female life. How soiled her underwear was from the night before. The dead roses that swell in and then pour from her gut until it's empty for another little while. The garden under her skin. Below her bones. Manic with reasons she wants no part of. Foul with the sweat of a happiness she imagines other people must find in all the things she tries not to want.

She likes to sleep for as long as she can. She tries her hardest to never wake up again. But her body always betrays her. Still much healthier than she has done to it. Still much younger than she remembers of having lived in it.

They'll say you're not special. And you probably aren't. They'll say that skirt would look better a little higher. And maybe it would, but it's not for them to decide. She'll wear the time like a bracelet. Too loose around her wrist. It'll fall off. She'll be glad when it does.

That it's gone. And she doesn't have to wear those high heel anymore. Make so many apologies she doesn't mean. Or ever wear again those dresses they've picked out for her.

Throwing away the dimes that the dollars left her. The dirt wants to say she's short-sighted, but it's heavy from so much rain. She shrugs it on like she tends to all that mud. Thin skeletons dance on her skin. Tangoes. Paso Dobles. And people. Like earnest beauty pageants. Pretend they can dance on their crutches.