unconsciously resmoothed your glitter metallic lipgloss before reaching for the razor
locked the door
sucked in a breath
eagerness and fear /what in the holy hell do you think you're doing young lady have i taught you nothing?/ war inside
blew back a lock of violent auburn hair before pulling back in, scrambling for a righteous despair before

slash-slash-gape-recoil

your hand jerks & the line goes jagged –

oh.

ohmygodohshitohohoh

shit.

ohmygod.

oh

oh

all the while forgetting about release

/i said i needed it when had i needed it?/

thinking nothing of sweet, sweet (?) pain
because now the red spills faster, along with the panic

ohmygod.

you're desperate.

you're losing it.

you're verging on screaming "i repent! it hurts just stop it stop i swear i take it BACK"

ohmygodohshitohohoh

…but then
you conjure back the image of black-and-white angst
holding on to the scratchedupremains of what you came here to erase:

It was the
The Failure
The End
The Romeo Who Found His Whore Elsewhere
The One
The Only One (for me for no one else not for that bitch not anyone else & i promise on my freshly-painted grave) who would pay the blood and guilt price –

& suddenly the bile is a lot easier to swallow.
& suddenly another line creeps forth.
& suddenly you're smiling.

they didn't say it would be so sickening but you hold back nausea & bask in the triumph
too romantic a moment to think, glorified in your mind so many times
caught up caught in basked in the wonder (& in the pain nothing too sweet about it) before realizing there are too many pretty pictures
so
you snap out of self-importance long enough to
fleetingly
wonder if that was a vein

pause.

a beat.

- fingers move on their own to carve another memoir –

hesitation?

/shame on you watching your life sputter out in coils & beads waiting for us to scrub it back in and paste back on your lips in a funeral dress – then what else will there be left?/

no matter.
it's what you came here for.
it's where you'll be ending up in.
they'll find you and know you were

.vogue
.

they'll feel guilty for there will be no more repenting over your pale pale soul –

& so,
we
come
to
the
end.
any regrets, o wretched follower?