Makeup
written by: Godfrey Holy
Flowers blooming in a garden
Are just tools meant to fix fate,
To clothe reality in fake moments.
To emollient and soothe the skin of life.
Totems of beauty and happiness,
Of bygones and wishes some yet to
Be wished; a sugar coated past—
Frosting on a future yet to be baked.
I see smiles that tile myriad trials
Faces taught to conceal all that is real.
A roof over the dead within and the
Life without; a pancho over wounds and
Scars inflicted by life, by living and losing.
By wanting and needing and not getting.
And we push on through the murk
Blinded by vanities that twinkle
From sunrise and fade at sunset.
We shade within the lines of a silence
That has so much to say.
We muffle the bones and listen to the skin,
But the cancer seeps through in grins
And hugs that glitter brighter than gold.
Reality is such a colicky toddler.
You may paint over her with lullabies
And butterfly kisses, with selfies and
Instagram.
Underneath the lipstick is chapped lips.
- Identity - November 24, 2024
- Anatomy of Sadness - July 29, 2024
- Anatomy of Silence - May 20, 2024
