I was once naked because it used to be enough

To bear it all bare with not much else but a smile in your eyes and a thought on your tongue

I glowed with much more than a factory-induced shimmer, chemical reactions sparked by my own making

I was once free until it came to be too much

Too much for them and more than enough

To spot a person amongst the mannequins

Much too fast and suddenly you were damaged goods

Less than a minute, less than a moment, but more than a word, more than a fear

At one point free and in the next, you were sealed

Sealed away by a frame of mind framed only by the eyeliner swiping the tips of your eyes that could not blink for fear of missing

Outcast by the masses when you were suddenly brilliant, the words unspoken not as sharp as the ones that died

And so the powder became a film that dimmed your eyes until the only words that were spoken were ones that were

lying beneath the surface a mass of contradictions that would crack the mask, otherwise a stain across your skin that replaced the heat you can no longer feel

But they were finally smiling back

The stretch of lines across their face the goal you had in

minding your manners and action and self until you were stretching the clay that had made you so special

That is now only worth the peeling clearance sticker that screams of mass production

Fitting to the mold without noticing the mold that has rotted your true worth away

But still you face the light

Reciting those lines through the hole in your mask

Because you can’t fill up empty spaces in the hole in your heart

But they were finally smiling back

The raise of brows no higher than the raise of opinion you craved for so long

So you pile on the layers that claim many things but did not disclaim that they would take that which you born with

Can’t wipe away the armor, it’s hardened too long like the nights spent perfecting the shades wiping away the brightness underneath

So you close your eyes because the price is suddenly right, lashes veiling the sight you don’t wanna see

Your hair curtains your face, shielding your view but the audience stares, and so you were hiding as the show continues

And the goods were claimed to no longer be damaged, fit to be

sold to the public, still flawed in private

Less than a minute, less than a moment, but more than a word, more than a fear

When the makeup and make-believe and make-it-work and make-it-happens all slid off

Too thick, too long, too heavy, too wrong

When you split into pieces

Frantically trying to conceal the darkness within but too late they’ve seen it

Scream though you try to fill in the cracks, the dry spell broken while liquid runs free

Yes you tried

But there was no brand in the world that could ever cover the you they found flawed

No foundation because you had your own

No mascara because there is nothing to mask

No bronzer because you’re golden

Then you look back at the mannequins with their false sense of beauty and the looks on their faces, can’t face what wasn’t of their making

Try the perfume aisle

you might as well wear Envy

For they were finally smiling back

On the day that you couldn’t