Sadness sunken in your face
is not romantic, but fiercely ugly
as it should be
you forget to wish it was gone
you are so busy
wanting for it to be beautiful.

You smothered yourself with flowers
to effuse their essence,
but they denied you the secrets of their being
Their pungent greed burned your eyes
with the sour taste of beauty rotten
You crushed them beneath your feet,
the sidewalk stung of perfume
you just wanted to be beautiful.

Fleeting glimpses of ecstasy
you have wrangled, not for rapture
but to paint onto your face,
to stretch out over your freckles
until they shrivel into gruesome contortions
of happiness past its expiration date
joy had seemed so beautiful
and all you wanted was to be beautiful.