She wears the perfume

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She wears the perfume,
and she wears it nicely.

It's hard to tell at first,
but there's definitely something

beneath initial wafts
and first impressions

of her.

I don't know how to describe it--
(let me gather myself, let me gather my thoughts).

She's an interesting person...
someone beyond her years.
I really see her differently,
and it's not just the scent that defines her.

Her courage to question a system
that she thought could be so flawless, and so
unshakably, unmistakably

Perfect.

She wears the perfume,
and she wears it well.


So well, in fact, that she's choking
on the illusions that the witches have brewed,

contained in a ... glass
ever so lucidly.

the drugs have synthesized with oxygen--
circulation running amuck in her cherry "snow white" heart.

And it pumps--beats--pumps--beats--,
all the way to her feet,
and her arms and her legs and her stomach.

Slowly, she's ingesting the surreal,
digesting the unreal,
and protesting the real
and learned.

She wears the perfume to cover all this. lost in
figures and places that used to be familiar, but
are really just trapped in foreign vortexes of her once
familiar mind.

And this is how she copes with it,
on the real,
dressing herself for false attention and
setting herself up for a dinner date with
disappointment and heartbreak and stomachaches.

And this is just her countenance,
her cathedral facade--perceived as high and mighty
and royal and INVOLVED.

The truth could not be so distant.

And she's crying, begging to me,
to ME,
to help her through this and to mend her
sprained ankles over missing these
FOUR IMPORTANT STAIR STEPS
to identify, and
to reach that achieved state of mind.

Minus the truth.

Yesterday: Ages Ago

When we sat on a bench
Small talking, taking pictures
Feeling unnoticeably awkward
And getting to know each other.

When we drove around
To what seemed like Neverland
(because we got lost
and decided to just go on
OUR very own adventure)
In the middle of the night while
KOST-ing it.

When I slept on the couch
And YOU were my blanket
(not because you didn't
or couldn't make your way home.
Oh, the dumb excuses you made...
But because I didn't,
actually, couldn't make my way home
and you wanted to stay).

When you came from across the room,
Held out your hand,
And we rolled, we glided, we sweated...
WE danced.
(Points of contact: body to body;
And you held my hand
With only a few fingers interlaced
Because you knew I liked it that way).

When I thought you were mine.
And you figured out that I'm yours to keep.
And now I'm in too deep to jump out.
In to you, in to this triangle of
Unrequited, unconditional love for you,
the way you say you love her
(And yes, she may see the best & worst with you,
But she doesn't accept it the way I do;
Cliche but true:
She doesn't see how your imperfections
Really do make you perfect...)

When you called me your sister,
And I smiled in returned
And yelled out, "Whattup, bro!"
And you frowned because you realized
That's how she sees you.

When you leaned on my shoulder,
And laughingly whispered, "I love you, man."
And I respond, "I love you."
Oh wait--that was today.
Actually... that's every day.

Empires.

When fools can be leaders,
And leaders can be fools,
We'll have ourselves a revolution.

Plans.

We live our lives to expect the worst.
Yet we plan for the best.