wallflower

she

was a nervous voyeur at the disco,
an awkward shrine to camouflage about to come undone,

the swirling tissues of their dresses echoed
an undertow of desperation beneath the shallow beat,

and glazed eyes were made duller than her glass-caged existence
rooted in quiet speculation.

she

who bends eyelashes down in a curtain call
to the boombox, saw truth through the narrow lense of self-exclusion.

like sullied mannequins, they repainted lips with laughter
and reveled as tinny amplifications of the teenage american dream

while she leaned against the wall and slowly tore one jagged line
down the asymmetrical mask of her intellect.