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Paperclipped Smiles
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In The Long Shadow of Loss paperclips hold your smiles together
they're impressed upon
new-age papyrus
with those thin blue lines cutting through
the veins of your existence
what you feel is your greatest written truth
read between the lines,
you'd say
if you would ever speak out loud
but pins and needles hold your lips shut
you've always got that feeling
that there's a bad voodoo rising
in your next
expressed
thought
if the world knows it
they'll curse you, too
so silence, for you like so many,
is a sancitified house, your fort knox,
your safe house
behind paperclipped-together smiles
that show to others
what ever they want to see
in you that makes them feel good
like that houseplant that gets watered from time to time
by their kitchen window
but somehow i,
of all strangers in your life,
read between the lines without prompt
and your veins are so damn blue, honey,
they're so damn blue
picasso could have painted that whole period
with you
and in a mirror
you lose yourself -
you're at best a silouhette
of what you really are,
looking back
at those eyes on the smiles
you hold together with paperclips
you reach for another
in the small cup
upon the dresser
