🪞(reupload)

a masquerade of let down faces,

clockwork paper chain arms,

pass me around to somebody you know will miss the meaning.

entrapped in a crowd of cacophonous rose-tinted beauty

force into the foreground as a spectacle of abnormality,

a chorus of mockery played in fortissimo;

never looking AT me, only ever through.

corroded to reveal the bare bones of what I truly am

force-fed reminders that my good nature is phantasmic,

spotlighted in ballrooms for improvements.

clinking canines overcast by the reverberation of champagne toasts,

corset-restricted breathing feels more like choking on solvents.

staring at the auditorium through fractured irises,

slipping out through the foyer before saltwater eyes can spill

 spiralling down cast iron staircases,

descending laddering balconies,

seeking silence amongst the babylons

cursing up at candlelit skies, hoping a deity reads your sorrowful prayers between the lines,

raking glass slippers through sediments,

wishing the ground you walk knew how to submerge you into an early grave.