Picture

I didn’t paint a picture. I didn’t mask at all. The pretty drugs and flashing lights were there to watch me fall.

I fell just like a princess. With girly twirls and hair. I’d pick up work and smile and flirt and never really care.

My act was like a mirror. But a mirror, we all know, can be bent and twisted, warped and tainted. Truth inside a show.

I didn’t paint a picture. The picture painted me. TV shows and social woes became a common theme.

My picture looks just like you. But the you who is afraid. The tainted love the dark regret the acid in your rage

I boxed it up, this picture, and packaged it in dreams. And sold it all to everyone who ever dared believe.

My picture looked all pretty. In clipped and shallow light. But underneath, the shadows fell and cast an ugly sight.

I never saw the picture, that I had claimed to be, as anything other than a storybook. Mad hatter and the tea.

Reality is bittersweet. No makeup could deny. The years have gone, time will go on, the days now pass me by.

There never was a picture. The picture was for me. There’s someone underneath it all, if only you would see.