Grief, and the Color Yellow

The pageant had taken the girls life,
Taken it where they did not know,
But she was gone, while wearing a gown,
And the word around town was, it was self-inflicted,
No, no slit wrists or gunshot wounds,
No burns around her neck from a rugged rope,
But her soul was bruised, black and blue,
Bruises, that were the size of her fists,
And the size of her anger and self-loathing.

Her tiara was  lopsided on her lifeless head,

And her expression was crooked digust,

And the breathing freshly alive girl in the mirror began to cry.

She walked out of the room and into the hallway,

Beyond in the distance, from another room she heard the murmurs,

From all the people waiting to see her, and her talents on display,

She put on her smile as she stood in the door way to the stage,

And the host motioned for her to come forward,

And kissed her on the cheek, where no man had kissed her before.

She did the tricks, and she displayed her talents,

She tried as she may to be proud of them,

But nothing came out, in her soul she was gone,

Her make up was thick, but her self-disgust thicker,

She wouldn't win again, and she didn't want to,

To have to push aside her dissappointments would be too much,

To finally embrace a success she never knew,

It wouldn't be right, she'd have to be a new person,

And her mother would have no use for her.

They carted away the corpse,

In one of those old WWI trucks,

While a collection of just as old-fashioned nurses,

Stitched and toiled away on the woundless body,

Making it bleed what it couldn't bleed,

Making some gaps in flesh, to come up with a better reason for its demise,

Than that she gave up and shut off,

That's what computers do, and in the new day and age it may be so,

But its not so simple, and her soul was dead and scarred.

Behind the curtain the host touched her bottom,

And fondled her breasts, and she tried to push him away,

It wasn't until a wandering mother came by that he stopped,

The soulless girl ran from  the curtain back to her dressing room,

And locked the door behind her, and stared at the nothing in the mirror,

The reflection was gone and taken away,

The crime scene had been wiped clean,

And she smiled, or, at least she thinks she smiled,

But, she couldn't see.

Tomorrow brought on new challenges,

And the girl was empty,

And like a marionette did the tricks,

All the tricks her mother had taught her,

Like a dog, tarred and rebuked until it got it right,

She was fashioned to be this way,

Knowing only what she knew, and never allowed to wonder more,

And in distress she'd shoot herself again,

With rage, and hopelessness,

And her nine lives would continue to be up.

The mass grave of the plague victims made a perfect place,

and they heaved and ho'd her body there,

Amongst the black and boiled bodies of the long ago departed, 

And with those roses in her hair,

And that lovely yellow dress, she stuck out like a sore thumb,

And on her face was no remorse,

Because for that of course, she would have to be complete,

She was only half a person,

The world made sure of that.