Tear Stains and Broken Smiles

She writes letters
across her makeup,
red-rouged love stories
destined for kill-me-blue eyeshadow
and it-hurts-too-much blush
staining the tip of her pen as she bleeds.

She tries to dab her eyes,
but tears and goodbyes have never mixed well
and she ends up leaving spatters on the page
as she fights to hold her chin up.

It's not magic,
the glitter clinging to her palms;
it's just desire leaving her soul
with every sob she loosens from her tongue.

And she'll never understand
that makeup doesn't disguise everything;
she'll be just as broken in the morning
as she is when scrubbing his departure from her skin
and calling her mascara waterproof.

It'll keep her tears from staining,
but that doesn't mean she'll never cry.

And she paints makeup on her cheekbones
as she signs her name in ruby red,
but she'll never forget
the ways his fingers trailed her lipstick
or the ache he left behind
when she rolled onto frozen pillows the morning after.

Makeup doesn't help
when the sunrise took the twinkle from her teeth...
but she'll pretend anyway.

It's better than admitting
that she shattered beneath the weight of smiling
when the world wiped her canvas clean.