The Woman She Used To Know

Dark, tired circles
beneath her eyes,
cheeks swollen from years of endless tears,
teeth, no longer permanent,
their roots dislodged
by the constant slaps across
her once flawless face.
She hides this hand of abuse
beneath the smooth thick brush of makeup she plasters on,
every time she has to step out
of herself, of her skin, her hiding place,
and into the world of reality.
She trembles, her eternally-damaged soul
wails in raw frustration
as she remembers
with every design branded into her skin
the stories, the pain, the blood-stained sheets
that lie buried beneath,
the cold hearth of her conscience
as she forces to feel,
forces to remember the sound of her name
upon somebody else’s lips,
somebody whose words
would help her forget
the scars both on her heart and skin,
the sweet embrace she once knew,
the comforting words of I Love You.
She watches through that old,
broken mirror,
with her paintbrush in hand,
waiting for that memory to come home
so she could capture its face, her face,
within the pages of the canvas of her mind,
as she tries, as she waits, patiently,
for the memory of who she once was:
that beautiful soul she once knew,
to make its way
back into the arena of her mind.
One day,
someday, she will be her
again.