vanity

Pick up that there magazine 

and peer into its pages. 

What do you see?


Porcelain women dripping 

in gold light,

eternalized in the color of 

warmth, of beauty.

Pearly-skinned flower-things with 

ocean eyes reflecting

in the setting sun.


It’s a mirage, 

you know. 

I thirsted for it too once,

when the world was 

tinted blue.


Strip the varnish from my soul and

let me show you the 

devastating night.

Aching gray translucent bodies writhe

before they turn to dust,

a season of brush on 

the forest floor.

When color leaves the soul it 

bruises the body.

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painting 101