The lip balm vaulted over lipsticks,
and hoisted itself upon a pair of lips,
while the discarded clouds sat around
listlessly, feeling that vast emptiness of
purpose that athletes who’ve lost in
their dedicated sport feel.

But not for long. For, in the sport of
vanity, every colour has its day.

Autumn leaves should be red, spicy as the leaking heat of cut flesh. This pretty gash in the palm of my hand, in my flesh cut by the chill, is as spicy as they come.

What a beautiful piece of blood.

Once, I thought a good sky, a worthy sky, should be clear, spotless. And I tried so hard to scrub the stars and moon away, that I scratched out the sky instead. Grey splotches now glare from a patchy sky, and only a sliver of moon is left.

Once, I was a perfectionist. Then I learnt you can’t expect to always get what you want. Isn’t the sky still beautiful, even if I did nothing; even though I did something?

When I say that a clothes hanger wants your body, I do not mean it has a prurient interest. It just wants to wear muscle, skin and bone; something more solid, something like you. To hold up your shoulders, wire their blades, so that they will never curve inwards under the weariness that bleeds from your mind and pools atop them. To make you stand tall, no matter what.

Because even clothes hangers can be noble.

Her eye had a rendezvous at the park.
It ran down in the dark and at once
embraced the night, twirling in arms
of starlight; the optic twinkle
ambiently magnified.

It spun out of balance and fell back,
laughing, a mere child to the ancient
night, who, to steal the liveliest
sparkle, proffered a pipe. The eye lit
up and puffed hour after hour, while
her human tossed in bed, gripped by
insomnia.

How sad this betrayal, this scheming
sky. How ignorant this vision, this
Judas eye.