The Unfurnished Face

The tubes of artificial health are standing in a row
I’ve opted for the actual
the terrifying low
My skin is just a document of every wasted year
A cartography of boredom and the very local fear

I crossed the threshold with my naked
raw and grayish cheek
To find if the world is as cruel as the mirrors speak
The porcelain was witness to a quiet
bitter crime
I’ve stopped my contributions to the industry of time

My eyelashes are stunted and my chin erupts in red
I’m displaying for the public exactly what I’ve shed

Oh
the horror of existing as a face without the paint
I’m lacking the illusion and the posture of a saint
I’m a clinical disaster
dull and porous and exposed
A chapter of the history that should have stayed closed
I’m walking to the corner with my vanity in shreds
While everyone is counting up the ghosts within their heads

The supermarket is a hall of cold and jagged glass
I watch the simulated and the beautiful ones pass
They have the symmetry that I no longer care to buy
A heavy and expensive and a structural white lie

The cashier is a child and her eyes are like a threat
She hasn’t met the full inventory yet
Of wrinkles gathering like dust upon the floor
I’m a relic of a person who isn’t needed anymore

I’m a biological event within a world of slick
The absence of my powder is a desperate fucking trick
I feel like a cathedral with the roofing ripped away
Exposing all the rot to the indifferent light of day

The hollow of my throat is a dry and thirsty ditch
Between the sagging chest and the nervous
local twitch
I thought I was a fortress but I’m only a wet wall
Waiting for the hammer of the evening time to fall

There is no secret holiness in a plain and unmarked face
Just the oxygen that’s filling up a vacant
darker space
I’ll crawl back to the bedroom through the cold and biting rain
And wash away the logic of this localized
sharp pain

The mask is a heavy weight that I am prepared to resume
But for three hours I was haunting every fucking room