welcome to my masquerade ball.

11:23pm: the artist

her wrists were her canvases
and her fists, her sculptures.
her body was her gallery,
on which she painted rust and crimson.
and every night she set out to work,
with her reflection as her only colleague
as she saluted to her chief, mr. vicodin.

together they'd work until daybreak.

when she caught herself
sleeping on the job,
she would punish herself
and take up double the workload
the next night,
during her graveyard shift.

people inquired of her occupation
and she calmly replied with
a knowing smile that has crept upon her face
as she exhibited a composition of her masterpieces.

"why, i'm an artist."

4:21pm: crimson

there's something soothing
about that color
and its tantalizing smell
that puts the mind at ease.
it runs smooth, but deep
as the familiar pain takes over,
returning to bring you back to
when brown met silver,
the smooth that roughened your skin
and introduced the scarlet color
as it trickled down the sink.
you thought you saw words
tattooed, burnt, etched on skin
but that must have been
another trick of the eye,
just another hallucination
from all the pills you took.
so you closed your eyes
and tilted your head back,
ready to let sleep
overcome you once again. 
but you could only
think of the words you
thought you must have imagined.
"DO NOT OPEN."
three words gleaming furiously,
but only in the beginning,
and as you drifted off
the words slowly faded,
replaced soon by others,
forming the last words
that ever echoed in your head.

"let's taste crimson tonight."

1:59pm:

i'll be your quasimodo in disguise. & you'll be my imperfect perfection.
& when the dark clouds shadow your skies, i'll shield you behind these walls of protection.
it's where we'll be invisible to the oblivious, when it's us against the world.
& with these calloused fingers i'll lift the world off of your shoulders.

...cuz you're my imperfect perfection. the one that saw through me, right from the start...
                                                                ...the gypsy that danced her way into my heart.